


* 4 









Class _2tL£H 
Book .£>*} ) 2_ 



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Copyright N?._ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSE 




The Squirrel. 

" They sat on the branches with their bushy tails curving over 

their backs." Frontispiece. Seepage 104. 



Wilderness Babies 

By 

Julia Augusta Schwartz 



Illustrated from Drawings by John Huybers 
and from Photographs 



School Edition 



Boston 
Little, Brown, and Company 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 

Two Copies Received 

FEB 2 !906 

*> Cooyrieht Entry 
CLASS CL XXc, No, 

/ 3 T> ^ 

COPY B. 






Copyright, 1905, 1906, 
By Little, Brown, and Company. 



All rights reserved 



printers 
S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, U. S. A. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Introduction ix 

I. The One with a Pocket 1 

II. The One that Eats Grass in the Sea . . 17 

III. The Biggest One 27 

IV. One of the Fleetest 43 

V. The Best Builder 57 

VI. The Timid One 77 

VII. The One with the Prettiest Tail ... 93 

VIII. One that Sleeps all Winter 107 

IX. The Wisest One 121 

X. The Fiercest One 135 

XI. The One that Digs the Best 14-9 

Conclusion l6l 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE SQUIRREL 

"They sat on the branches with their bushy tails curving 

over their backs " Frontispiece 

THE OPOSSUM page 

" In a few minutes another and another baby followed 
the big brother and clung there on the mother's 
furry back" 5 i 

THE MANATEE 

" The old mother manatee held him close to her " . . 19 

THE WHALE 

1 " The old mother whale came tearing back to the rescue " 39 y 

THE ELK 

" Grazing over the upland meadows " 48 ^ 

THE BEAVER 

" Across the pond to feast in the woods " 65 

THE RABBIT 

" It was pleasant there in the underbrush of the woods * 84 

THE FOX 

" Now and then the fox stopped to listen " 131 

THE WOLF 

" It was the father wolf coming in" 137 

THE MOLE 

" The greedy young ones shoved and pushed and fought 

as if they were starving "... 152 ' 



INTRODUCTION 

This book tells the stories of some of the baby 
mammals of the wilderness, — how they grow 
and learn day by day to take care of themselves. 
In hollow trees or down under water among 
the lily leaves, in the cool sea or on the rugged 
mountains, on the grassy plains or among the 
waving tree-tops, in the dark caves and burrows 
or hidden in the tangles underfoot, — all the 
world is alive with young creatures. 

Bright eyes glitter and small paws patter, 
little noses sniff the air and sharp ears twitch. 
There is a rustling of leaves above and a crack- 
ling of twigs below, a splashing in the swamp 
and a silent bending of the grasses. In the 
sunshine or the rain, in the daytime or at night, 
life is busy everywhere on this beautiful old 
earth. 

All the mammals are alike in having hair 
on some part of their bodies, in having teeth 
at some time in their lives, and in feeding the 
young with milk. But there are many, many 
kinds of mammals, of different shapes and sizes 



INTRODUCTION 



and colors. There are all sorts of babies, from 
the tiny mouse that could sleep in an eggshell 
to the big baby whale, twice as long as an ox. 
Some can swim like fishes ; others can fly like 
birds. Some dig homes under the ground ; 
others make their nests in hollow trees or caves. 
Some live in the mountains and some on the 
plains. Some live in the woods and some in 
the sea. Some eat grass, and others eat flesh ; 
some eat nuts, some eat fruit, and some eat 
anything they can find. 

Many of the mammals are alike in some 
ways. Squirrels and mice have strong teeth 
to gnaw with ; the cow and elk eat grass and 
chew a cud, and the bear, wolf, and fox eat 
flesh. 

Those mammals that are most alike are said 
to belong to the same order. For example, 
every animal with hoofs belongs to the Order 
of Hoofed Mammals. Every animal with four 
gnawing teeth in the front of its mouth belongs 
to the Order of Gnawing Mammals. Every 
animal that lives on flesh belongs to the Order 
of Flesh-Eating Mammals. 

There are eleven of these groups, but the 
animals of North America belong to only eight 
of them. All the animals in the first group 
have pouches or pockets, of their own skin, in 



INTRODUCTION xi 

which to carry the young. The opossum be- 
longs to this Order of Pouched Mammals. 
When he is a baby he is carried around in his 
mother's furry pocket. Later he learns to hang 
by his feet and tail to a branch while he eats 
fruit. At night he trots through the woods 
and roots for insects with his pointed nose. 

The manatee belongs to the Order of Sea- 
Cows. Sea-Cows are fishlike creatures that 
eat vegetable food in the sea or in rivers. The 
fat baby manatee lies in his mother's arms as 
she balances herself on the end of her tail in 
the water. He learns to crawl about on the 
sandy bottom and munch water-plants. 

The whale belongs to the Order of Whales. 
Though he lives in the deep ocean and looks 
like a monstrous fish, he is really a mammal. 
He has warm blood and a few bristles for hair. 
The baby whale is fed on milk at first. When 
he grows older he is taught to catch and eat 
water animals. 

The wapiti, called the American elk, belongs 
to the Order of Hoofed Four-Foots. They 
eat grass and chew the cud. The story of an 
elk roaming over the mountains is almost the 
same as the story of any of the swift deer 
family. 

The beaver and the squirrel and the rabbit 



xii INT ROD UCTION 

belong to the Order of Gnawers. The beaver 
cuts down trees with his strong teeth, and 
builds dams and houses of sticks. The squirrel 
scampers along the branches, and sits up to 
nibble nuts in the shadow of his own bushy 
tail. The rabbit scuttles over the ground from 
one hiding-place to another, in his daily search 
for green grass and tender twigs to eat. Rats 
and mice are also Gnawers. Indeed, there are 
many more animals in this Order than in any 
of the others. 

The bear and the wolf and the fox belong 
to the Order of Flesh Eaters. They are all 
mighty hunters. The swift wolf, the tricky 
fox, and the strong-armed bear all have many 
long, cutting teeth to tear their prey to pieces. 

The mole belongs to the Order of Insect- 
Eaters. He lives underground, and learns to 
dig with his shovel-like hands. When his 
pointed teeth grow out he chases worms up 
and down and around, and gobbles them as 
fast as he can. 

The bats belong to the Order of Wing- 
Handed Mammals. The baby bat is rocked 
to sleep in his mother's wings. He learns to 
fly in the dark and to hunt the swift insects 
that hover above the roads and ponds. When 
winter is near he finds a gloomy cave. There 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

he hangs, head downward, by the hooks on 
his claws, and sleeps till spring brings the 
warm weather again. 

It is now countless years since the earth was 
new. It has changed from a bare, hot gloomy 
ball, covered with black rocks and muddy 
water, to a green, beautiful world. There are 
all kinds of living things in the ocean. In the 
forests insects hum above the flowers ; birds 
fly from branch to branch ; reptiles crawl 
beside the rivers. And everywhere — in the 
air and beneath the ground, on the land and 
under the water — live the mammals. 

The opossum is the one with a pocket. The 
manatee is the only eater of grass in the sea. 
The whale is the biggest of all animals. The 
elk is the handsomest of the swift deer family. 
The beaver is the best builder. The squirrel 
has the prettiest tail. The rabbit is the most 
hunted by all its hungry enemies. The bear 
is the surliest one. The wolf is the fiercest. 
The fox is the shrewdest. The mole can dig 
better and faster than any of the others. 



I 

THE OPOSSUM 
«THE ONE WITH A POCKET" 



Wilderness Babies 



THE ONE WITH A POCKET 

FOR days and days the new baby opos- 
sums lay crowded close together in their 
mother's furry pocket. They slept and 
drank milk, and grew and grew till their eyes 
began to open. It was dark all around them, 
but up above their heads a faint gray line 
showed where light was stealing in over the 
edge of the pocket. 

The biggest baby opossum looked and 
looked with his little bright eyes. He wanted 
to see more. So up he crawled, clambering 
over the soft, tiny bodies of the eleven other 
babies. Some of them wriggled and squirmed 
under his bare little feet. After slipping back 
once or twice he reached the edge and poked 
his pointed white snout outside. 

He could not see anything because he was 
under his mother, and her long fur hung 
down over him. She was lying on a nest of 
grasses in a hollow tree. That was where she 



WILDERNESS BABIES 



stayed all day long when the sun was shining 
without. Every night at dusk she climbed 
down the rough trunk and went to hunt for 
something to eat. 

When she felt the tiny claws of her baby 
clutching her fur she looked down between 
her fore-paws at the little mouse-like fellow. 
Then with her smooth pink hands she gently 
pushed him back into the pocket and closed 
the opening. He was not big enough yet to 
come out of the warm, dark nursery. 

So for a week longer he cuddled down be- 
side the others, while they all slept and drank 
more milk and grew stronger every hour. 
The biggest baby was so restless that he 
scrambled around and crowded the others. 
Once he caught hold of another's tail be- 
tween the thumbs and fingers of his hind- 
feet, and pulled till the little one squeaked. 
His fore- feet were like tiny hands without any 
thumbs. 

At last, one day, he saw the edge of the 
pocket open a crack. He was so glad that 
he climbed up as fast as he could scramble, 
and pushed outside. He held on to his 
mother's fur with all four feet. When she 



\ W m 1 a 




The Opossum. 

"In a few minutes another and another baby followed the big brother and clung 

there on the mother's furry back." Page 5. 



THE OPOSSUM 



reached down to smell him the bristles on her 
lips tickled his nose. Then he climbed around 
upon her back and twisted his tail about hers 
to hold him steady. 

He looked like a mouse, with his long tail, 
his black ears erect, his bright eyes twinkling 
in his little white face, and his pointed nose 
sniffing at the strange odors in the hollow 
tree. It was much lighter there than inside 
the pocket. Higher up over his head there 
was a hole leading out of the hollow. Queer 
small shadows were dancing and flickering 
across the opening. He did not know that 
they were only green leaves. 

In a few minutes another and another baby 
followed the big brother and clung there on 
the mother's furry back. It must have seemed 
a noisy place to them, for while in the pocket 
they had noticed only the softest muffled rus- 
tling and scratching of the old one's feet in 
the nest. Now they could hear a chirping and 
a squeaking and a rattling of branches. They 
crowded close together in fright at the scream 
of a blue jay, as it chased a chattering red 
squirrel through the tree-top. Then a sudden 
loud thump-thump-thump of a woodpecker 



6 WILDERNESS BABIES 

hammering on the bark outside sent them 
scuttling back to the safe nursery in a tum- 
bling hurry. 

After this the whole family climbed out 
every day to play about on the mother's back. 
The biggest baby liked to curl his small tail 
about her large one, and then swing off head 
downward. Sometimes he pushed the others 
down just for the fun of seeing them scramble 
up again, hand over hand, clutching the long 
fur. 

Of course he was the first one to poke his 
head out every day. Once he woke from a 
nap in the pocket and started to climb out- 
side. But he stopped half-way, hanging to 
the edge with both fore-feet. It was nearly 
evening, and the old mother opossum was 
clambering down the trunk to go hunting for 
her supper. 

The baby held on tightly, while she trotted 
away through the woods. Now and then a 
leaf rustled or a stick cracked under her feet. 
Sleepy birds were twittering in their nests. 
The mother pricked her ears and listened, for 
she ate eggs and young birds whenever she 
could find them within reach. She had not 



THE OPOSSUM 



tasted an egg this spring, because she could 
not climb very nimbly with her pocket full of 
babies. 

Presently she came to a swamp, and splash, 
splash, splash! the mud went flying. It spat- 
tered the baby's white face and made him 
sputter and cough. Then he heard the dread- 
ful croaking of hundreds of frogs. In a ter- 
rible fright he slid back into the nursery to 
hide beside the others. 

The old one was trying to catch a frog to 
eat. Now she jumped this way, and now she 
jumped that way. Such a jostling as the 
babies felt when she finally gave a great 
spring for a big green fellow sitting on a 
log. She caught him, too, but the jolt almost 
knocked the breath out of the twelve soft 
little bodies in her pocket. 

On another evening the babies awoke to 
find themselves swinging to and fro in dizzy- 
ing jerks. They rolled and tumbled from side 
to side. They bumped their heads and noses 
against one another. When the biggest baby 
tried to push his way out he found the edge 
of the pocket close shut. Though he scratched 
and squeaked the mother did not open it. She 



8 WILDERNESS BABIES 

was afraid that they would all fall to the 
ground, for there she was hanging upside- 
down by her tail to a branch of the tree. 

Down below on the ground a big black bear 
was hugging the trunk and shaking it as hard 
as he could. He was trying to shake the old 
opossum off so that he might catch her and 
eat the whole family. But she held on so long 
that finally he became tired of waiting. So 
away he walked to find something else for 
supper. Then the mother swung down to the 
nest in the hollow and rested there while her 
babies played around her. 

Every day the babies stayed outside the 
nursery for a longer time, though they were 
always ready to scurry back at the mother's 
first warning grunt. They kept growing big- 
ger, till one night they found that they could 
not all crowd into the pocket. Then they 
huddled together on her back, with their tails 
twisted around hers. 

In this way they rode through the woods 
when she went hunting. They watched with 
their bright eyes while she turned over rotting 
logs with her snout to catch the grubs under- 
neath. Sometimes she rooted in the ground 



THE OPOSSUM 9 

for sprouting acorns, or nipped off mouthfuls 
of tender grass. Once she caught a young 
rabbit. Then how excited the little opossums 
were! And how they all squeaked and hissed 
together as they rode trotting home! 

By this time they had cut their teeth, — fifty 
sharp little teeth in each hungry mouth. It 
was time for them to be weaned. When they 
tried to drink milk the mother pushed them 
away. Then she picked some sweet red ber- 
ries, and taught the hungry babies how to eat 
them. They learned to chew the juicy roots 
that she dug in the fields. 

The babies were greedy little things. When 
the old one caught a mouse or a mole or a 
toad, the young ones all rushed and snatched. 
Once the biggest baby gobbled up a beetle 
before the others could get a taste. They 
were so angry that they tried to bite his nose 
and ears. He squeaked, and ran as fast as 
he could to hide under the mother. 
_ She was a good and patient mother. Of 
course, as long as they were small enough to 
stay in her pocket she carried them every- 
where with her. Even when they grew as 
large as rats they rode on her back through 



10 WILDERNESS BABIES 

the woods. These twelve fat babies were so 
heavy that sometimes she staggered and 
stumbled under the load. 

One night, when all the babies were trot- 
ting along on their own feet, they saw two 
gleaming red eyes in the dark thicket before 
them. Something round and furry snarled 
and sprang at them. They all ran under 
their mother as quick as a wink. She ruffled 
her long grayish hair above them. When the 
animal jumped at her she growled and hissed 
and scratched and bit furiously, till he ran 
limping away into the shadowy wilderness. 

On another evening a big dog came gallop- 
ing up before they could scramble into a tree. 
His red tongue was hanging out of his mouth 
between his white teeth. As soon as he caught 
sight of the opossums he made a dash to catch 
them. Instantly they all fell down and rolled 
over, just as if they were dead. 

There they lay, with their eyes shut, their 
paws limber, their tails limp. They seemed to 
stop breathing. The dog smelled them and 
pushed them with his cold nose. But they 
kept perfectly still and did not move even 
an eyelash. They were pretending to be 



THE OPOSSUM * 11 

dead. It was the one trick that they all 
knew without being taught. 

The minute the dog walked away up they 
all jumped and scampered into a tree as fast 
as they could scurry. When the dog turned 
his head and saw them he ran back and 
leaped up to reach them. But all the opos- 
sums were safe enough now. While he was 
jumping and barking below they clung fast 
in the tree with their hand-like feet. They 
wound their tails about the branches above to 
hold more securely. 

The little opossums learned to climb all sorts 
of trees, rough or smooth. It was easier to 
climb the rough trees because they could dig 
their nails farther into the bark. The biggest 
baby could walk along the springiest limb, even 
if it kept teetering up and down in the wind. 
When he felt like it he swung by his tail for 
the longest time without getting dizzy. 

All summer long the twelve little opossums 
stayed with their mother. During the day 
they slept cuddled in the hollow tree. The old 
father opossum never came home, for the 
mother had driven him away before the babies 
were born. She wanted all the room in the nest 



12 WILDERNESS BABIES 

for them. She could take care of them better 
than he could, because she was bigger and knew 
how to fight her enemies more fiercely. Every 
night, after sunset, the mother and her twelve 
children set off on their hunting. Down 
through the woods to the marsh they trotted. 
There some waded into the mud to catch frogs, 
while others chased mud-turtles over the shore. 
Some hunted for berries and others nosed for 
acorns under the oaks. 

It was beautiful there in the woods at night. 
When the stars twinkled overhead and the soft 
wind rustled in the tree-tops the little ones 
frisked and frolicked. They hid under the 
shadowy bushes or jumped hither and thither 
to snap at the fluttering moths. But on stormy 
evenings they plodded on in the rain, their 
wet fur drooping. With their noses close to 
the ground they hunted till they found a few 
mouthf uls to eat. Then back to the cosy hol- 
low for a longer nap, after licking their pink 
hands clean and washing their white faces, 
just as kittens do. 

One night, in autumn, the old mother opos- 
sum felt the nip of frost in the air. Then she 
knew that the persimmons were ready to be 



THE OPOSSUM 13 

eaten. Away through the woods she hurried, 
with the young ones trotting after her. Past 
the marsh and over the blackberry hills she 
led the way to a thicket of trees tangled with 
wild grapevines. There above on the branches 
the round little persimmons were shining yel- 
low in the moonlight. 

Up the trees eleven of the babies scrambled 
hungrily, and, hanging by their tails, stuffed 
the fruit into their wide mouths. Ah! but 
was n't it delicious ! Better than anything they 
had ever tasted before in all their short lives! 
Then the biggest baby, who had stopped to 
gobble ripe grapes, heard them munching so 
greedily. One look sent him clambering after 
the others. He was sorry enough that he had 
wasted any time eating wild grapes. 

Night after night, till the persimmons were 
gone, the opossums hurried away to the thicket, 
and ate and ate till they could eat no longer. 
They grew so fat that they puffed and panted 
when trotting home again in the gray light of 
frosty dawn. 

As the weather grew colder the opossums 
roamed farther through the woods in search 
of food. Once in a while one of them found 



14 WILDERNESS BABIES 

a pawpaw-tree. Then from far and near opos- 
sums gathered under the low wide-spreading 
branches to feast on the banana-shaped fruit. 
That was the last good dinner that the little 
fellows had for many weeks. 

Soon the ground was frozen hard over the 
juicy roots. All the fruit left in the woods 
hung wrinkled and frost-bitten. The worms 
and toads crawled into their holes for the 
winter. The beetles disappeared, and the 
spiders curled up in their hiding-places to 
sleep through the cold weather. Most of the 
birds flew away south. 

One by one each little opossum wandered 
off by himself, and made a nest in a cosy hole 
or a snug hollow stump. There he drowsed 
away the days, and often slept through the 
nights without stirring out. Now and then 
one of them caught a mouse or dug up a frozen 
root to nibble. Sometimes they tore rotten 
logs apart to get at the torpid grubs within. 
, The biggest baby found a heap of nuts hidden 
away under a stone by a thrifty chipmunk. 

In the beginning of the winter the little 
opossums were so fat that they could live three 
or four weeks without eating or drinking. 



THE OPOSSUM 15 

When the cold winds blew, and the snow fell 
silently, they cuddled down in their warm nests 
and slept the time away. But many a night 
they woke up hungry. And every day their 
round furry bodies were a little thinner, till at 
last spring melted the snow and ice everywhere. 

There was plenty to eat by that time, with 
all the green things growing. The little crea- 
tures of the woods and ponds were waking to 
new life. There were buds to nibble and 
beetles to catch. There was many a nest of 
birds' eggs, too, and broods of tender young 
field-mice squeaking in the grass. There were 
frogs croaking in the marsh, and berries were 
ripening in the fields. 

The twelve little opossums were grown up 
now, and knew how to take care of themselves. 
Their mother had another family of babies in 
her furry pocket. Sometimes she met her other 
children roaming beside the marsh to catch 
frogs. One evening they saw, just as plain 
as anything, a little pointed nose and two 
twinkling bright eyes peeping over the edge 
of her pocket. 



II 

THE MANATEE 
"THE ONE THAT EATS GRASS IN THE SEA' 




The Manatee. 

" The old mother manatee held him close to her.' 



Page 19. 



THE ONE THAT EATS GRASS IN 
THE SEA 

DOWN among the lily-leaves, under the 
river, the baby manatee was being 
rocked to sleep on his mother's breast. 
He looked like a roly-poly fish, with a puffy 
dog-face. He was covered all over from his 
broad tail to his round head with thick and 
wrinkly gray skin. His tiny eyes were shut, 
and his flippers were folded together as he 
slept. 

The old mother manatee held him close to 
her, bending her short flippers, which were 
really her arms. The fingers at the ends 
of her hands were so hidden under the skin 
that they looked as if covered with mittens. 
She was balancing herself on the end of her 
tail, and swaying gently to and fro in the 
water. 

The baby's nap did not last very long. One 
of the annoying things about being a man- 
atee and living under water was the trouble 
in breathing. Every two or three minutes the 



20 WILDERNESS BABIES 

mother flapped her tail and rose to the top 
of the river to breathe. That always woke the 
baby. He opened his eyes, blinking in the 
bright sunlight. 

All around him the water sparkled and 
dimpled in the sunshine. Here and there 
dragon-flies glittered as they skimmed over 
the ripples. Butterflies were fluttering over 
the golden centres of the floating lilies. 
Graceful reeds bordered the shore. The 
juicy grass, that manatees love to eat, grew 
green, trailing underneath. Far up above it 
all the summer sky was blue. 

The baby manatee did not seem to care for 
all these beautiful sights. Very likely he could 
not see well above water, and he did not enjoy 
the dry, warm feeling of the air. His sense 
of smell must have been too dull to notice the 
fragrance of the lilies or the spicy scent from 
the swamp. Creatures living under water do 
not use their noses much. 

But the little manatee could hear the least 
soft plop of a leaf falling in the river. The 
sudden splash of a frog's jump made him 
squirm and twist in terror. He wriggled out 
of his mother's hold, and sank down, down, 



THE MANATEE 21 

down, with the bubbles eddying over his roly- 
poly body. 

Of course he was not afraid, for he could 
swim as soon as he was born. He paddled 
with his tail and flapped with his flippers as 
he went swimming around over the clean 
white sand of the river-bottom. At first he 
could not steer very well, and so he bumped 
into the stems of the lily-plants and tangled 
his flippers among the roots of the reeds. 

Through the pale green of the water all 
around him he caught sight of his father and 
big brother. They were creeping about on 
their flippers and tails, while they munched the 
weeds and grasses. When they stretched out 
their heads, toward a bite of something, each 
one grasped the food between two horny pads 
in the front of his jaw, tore it free, and then 
chewed it with his few grinding teeth in the 
back. Their faces looked like monstrous cater- 
pillars sucking and chewing. 

The baby champed his small jaws and 
sucked with his split upper lip as he watched. 
The sight of them eating made him so hungry 
that he wanted his mother to come and feed 
him with her milk. Manatees are mammals 



22 WILDERNESS BABIES 

that live in shallow water. Of all the animals 
in the sea and salt rivers manatees are the 
only ones that eat only grass and weeds. All 
other sea-mammals, and fishes, too, eat living 
creatures. 

Sometimes the baby manatee had great fun 
in rolling over and over on the sand and peb- 
bles at the bottom of the river. The old ones 
liked to scratch and clean their wrinkled skins 
by plunging and scraping over the gravel. It 
was easy enough for them to roll, because they 
were so round and had no legs to get in the 
way. 

After the tumbling he followed the others 
as they went paddling to the top of the river. 
There he twitched apart his lip-lobes and blew, 
spouting up spray and water. Then, drawing 
in a long breath, he closed the stoppers in his 
nostrils and floated down to the sandy bottom 
to sleep or eat again. 

All summer the manatees lived there in the 
pleasant river. On misty mornings sometimes 
they swam up to a mud flat, and crawled out 
to take a nap in the soft warm slime. Out 
in the air they could sleep and breathe at the 
same time, without waking up every few min- 



THE MANATEE 23 

utes. When the baby was tired of staying still 
he slid down the slippery bank — splash! — 
into the water. 

His splashing sent a snake wriggling away 
through the swamp. The crabs on the sand 
below went scuttling wildly hither and thither 
to escape the flapping of his tail. Fishes 
darted out-stream, and mussels closed their 
shells to keep out the stirred-up gravel. The 
frogs sitting in the mud turned their round 
eyes to look at the funny little fellow with the 
wrinkled dark skin. 

Away he paddled to the bottom and tried 
to munch the water-grasses. His few teeth 
were cutting through his gums by this time, 
and he was hungry for something besides 
milk. The green leaves tasted so salty and 
stringy that he did not like them at first. It 
was easier to suck warm, rich milk, without 
needing to chew and chew till his jaws really 
ached. 

One night the manatees lay down on the 
clean sand, folded their flippers under them, 
and closed their eyes. They fell fast asleep. 
Now one and now another woke to swim to 
the top for a good long breath. About mid- 



24 WILDERNESS BABIES 

night the old mother suddenly felt a chill 
stealing through the water. She shivered all 
over, and hurried to wake the others. She 
knew that cold weather had come. If they 
did not take care they would all catch cold 
and die. 

So away they started, as fast as they could 
paddle, down the river to the sea. Then south 
along the shore they travelled to find warmer 
waters. They kept so near land that they 
could hear the waves breaking on the beach. 
The ocean washed to and fro in swinging bil- 
lows over their heads. When the baby lifted 
his head above the surface, bits of foam blew 
in his eyes from the curling crests of the waves. 

Down below, where the old ones stopped to 
munch the seaweeds, he saw wonderful things. 
There were starfish crawling along with their 
five rays spread out. There were transparent 
jellyfishes, with long threads streaming down 
from their quivering bodies. There were mus- 
sels in their hinged shells lying on the bottom. 
There were sponges growing on the rocks. 
There were trees of branching coral, each tiny 
coral animal waving the fringe around its 
open mouth. 



THE MANATEE 25 

Of course there were fishes — hundreds 
and hundreds of them — flashing everywhere. 
Once a fat porpoise came rolling and tum- 
bling through the shallow water. He was a 
mammal, and belonged to the same group as 
the whales. When he was a baby he fed on 
milk, just in the same way as the little mana- 
tee and all other mammals. 

On and on travelled the manatees toward 
the warm south seas, now swimming on 
swiftly, now stopping to munch the weeds. 
Sometimes they stood on the tips of their 
tails and nodded their heads as if bowing. 
Sometimes they folded their flippers under 
them to sleep, then woke to breathe, and fall 
asleep again. 

After days and days they reached the 
southern river, where they were to spend the 
winter. There they found another family of 
manatees with a little one just the size of the 
baby. While the old ones munched the weeds, 
or dozed on the mud islands, the two youngest 
slid down the slippery banks and splashed and 
dived together. They took naps side by side. 
Sometimes they tried to balance themselves on 
their tails, as the old ones did. 



26 WILDERNESS BABIES 

This southern river was different from 
that one at home. The plants had broader 
leaves and larger flowers. The swamp was 
tangled and shadowy even at noonday. 
Strange animals tramped through the under- 
brush; monkeys swung on the branches, and 
brightly-colored birds flew overhead. Hairy 
spiders crawled over the ground, and big 
snakes wriggled into the water. 

When spring came, away the manatees 
swam on their way back to the pleasant river, 
where the baby first opened his little eyes in 
the cool green nursery among the lily-leaves. 
Of course he never knew that some sailors 
once saw his mother rocking him to sleep at 
the top of the water. They thought that she 
was a mermaid with a baby in her arms. 



Ill 

THE WHALE 

"THE BIGGEST ONE" 



THE BIGGEST ONE 

HE was the very biggest baby in all the 
world. He looked like a monstrous 
fish as he lay beside his mother in the 
middle of the bay. But he was not a fish. 
He breathed with lungs instead of gills. On 
his thick skin he had a few bristly hairs in- 
stead of scales such as fishes have. The blood 
rushing through the great veins in his body 
was warm instead of cold. And finally he 
was drinking milk in mighty gulps that sent 
gallons and gallons down his baby throat at 
every swallow. He was a whale, and be- 
longed to the class of mammals. 

The big body of the mother whale looked 
like a dark rounded island as she lay on her 
side almost out of water. She was the largest 
mother animal that ever lived. When she 
opened her enormous jaws her mouth seemed 
like a gloomy cave. Fastened along its floor 
was an immense cushiony white tongue as big 
as a feather-bed. 

The baby whale himself was twice as long 
as an ox. His smooth skin glistened like 



30 WILDERNESS BABIES 

shiny leather when he heaved his back above 
the waves for an instant. Once in a while he 
flapped his forked tail or wriggled his front 
fins. Though his eyes were bigger than a 
cow's they looked very small while he lay, 
half asleep, rocking lazily to and fro in the 
swell of the sea. 

The baby whale knew how to swim alone 
from the very first day. The earliest thing he 
remembered was the water lapping over his 
eyes and tickling in the tiny holes of his ears. 
On top of his head there were two blow-holes, 
or nostrils, closed with valves, to keep the water 
from trickling into his lungs. 

When he rose to the top of the sea, to 
fill his lungs with air, away he swam, up 
and up, easily and lightly, through the pale- 
green water, toward the sunlight twinkling 
on the surface above. The mother whale 
swam beside him, almost touching him with 
her flippers. Her flippers were really her 
arms. When he was tired she helped him 
by holding him up. 

As soon as his head pushed above the waves 
he opened the valves in the blow-holes and 
drew great breaths of sweet, fresh air deep 



THE WHALE 31 



down into his lungs. How good it felt! 
Then arching his back, with a flourish of 
his tail down he dived after his mother. 
They sank swiftly into the cool depths, while 
the sea closed silently over their shining 
sides. 

The baby whale did not go down very far. 
The air in his lungs buoyed him up. His 
bones were light and full of oil. Under his 
dark skin a layer of fat, called blubber, kept 
him floating, almost as if he were wearing a 
life-preserver wrapped around him. 

The new air in his lungs grew warm and 
damp. After a few minutes he wanted to 
breathe again. So with a flap-flap-flap of his 
tail up he paddled. Puff, piff ! out through 
the blow-holes rushed the warm air from his 
lungs. In the cold outside air it changed to 
spray, and went spouting up like a fountain. 
Down it came showering, with silver drops 
splashing and tinkling. 

That must have been fun. The baby could 
not stay under water so long as his mother 
could. Often he left her swimming around 
over the rocky bottom of the bay while he 
paddled up to get a fresh breath. Sometimes 



32 WILDERNESS BABIES 

he was in such a hurry that he blew out be- 
fore reaching the top. Then the water above 
him went spouting up, and sprinkling back 
noisily about his glistening head. 

For days and days the baby whale lived 
there in the bay with his mother. It was the 
whole world to him, for he had seen no other 
place. Of course he did not know how it 
looked from above, with its blue, sparkling 
water, and its tall cliffs casting long shadows 
over the ripples at dawn. 

To him the bay was a delightful play- 
ground. Its oozy floor was covered with 
rocks under the cool green water. Long 
fringes of seaweed floated deep down under 
there. In dark caves sponges and sea-lilies 
grew, and crabs scuttled backward into slimy 
crannies. There were big fishes and little 
fishes darting to and fro. At times they hung 
motionless, with glistening scales, their round 
eyes unwinking, their tails quivering now and 
then. - 

Every day, after the baby whale drank all 
the milk he wanted, he took a nap, lying be- 
side his mother on the surface of the bay. 
Every day he grew a little bigger, and swam 



THE WHALE 33 



a little faster, and stayed below a little longer 
without rising to breathe. 

When he was old enough to stop drink- 
ing milk he learned to eat the food which 
his mother liked. He often watched her 
swimming around the bay, with her great 
mouth hanging open. There were millions 
of the tiniest kind of creatures living in 
the water. They flowed into her mouth at 
the same time with the water. When she 
felt them tickling and wiggling over her 
tongue she closed her jaw almost shut. A 
sieve of long elastic strips of bone fell like 
a curtain from the roof of her mouth. Then 
the water drained out between the strips of 
bone, leaving the tiny animals inside to be 
swallowed. 

Instead of teeth the baby whale found such 
a fringe of whalebone strips growing on the 
roof of his mouth. When it was long enough 
to use he began to swim around with his jaw 
hanging down. Every day, in this way, he 
caught and ate thousands of tiny shrimps and 
crabs and mussels. He could not swallow any 
large fish because his throat was only a few 
inches wide. 



34 WILDERNESS BABIES 

He did not know that there are different 
whales in a different part of the sea. These 
other whales have teeth instead of whalebone 
sieves. In the tops of their heads they have 
great holes filled with sperm oil. Their throats 
are wide enough to swallow a man. They are 
called sperm whales, but the whales with whale- 
bone strips in their mouths are called true 
whales. 

When the baby stopped drinking milk the 
mother set out with him to leave the bay, and 
find the father whale in the deep sea without. 
The young whale could swim almost as fast 
as the old one now. He could stay under 
water without breathing quite as long as she 
could. The warm blanket of blubber under 
his skin had grown thicker. It kept him 
warm and helped him to float. 

Perhaps he was afraid to leave the safe bay 
for the wide ocean. He kept close beside his 
mother as they went rushing on, with their 
tails slapping up and down and around. The 
tail sent each one ahead, just as the screw of 
a steamer drives it forward. With their flip- 
pers they steadied their round bodies so that 
they would not roll over and over like logs. 



THE WHALE 35 



Out between the rocky cliffs, at the mouth 
of the inlet, they rushed through the green 
water. After travelling some distance out to 
sea the baby noticed that the water looked 
black below them, reaching down and down 
and down. He could not see the oozy, shell- 
covered floor, as in the bay. Above him the 
waves were larger, and swayed to and fro, 
cresting in foam. The big fishes were dart- 
ing hither and thither before the great round, 
rushing bodies of the mother and the baby 
whale. 

Very likely the old whale had been lonesome 
in the bay. She swam on in a hurry to find 
her mate and the rest of the herd. The baby 
followed as hard as he could paddle. This 
was a wonderful new world to him. Probably 
he wanted to stop and look around, especially 
when he rose to breathe. Once he gave a 
mighty jump and shot out far above the 
waves. He could not see well, except directly 
behind him. But while above there in the air 
he twisted in a curving leap. Everywhere water, 
water, water, stretching on and on and on. 

He could not see a single sign of any other 
whales being near. Yet somehow or other the 



36 WILDERNESS BABIES 

old mother knew that they were not far away. 
It may be that she could hear through the 
water, as if telephone-wires were spread under 
the waves. Sure enough ! soon the baby heard 
the splashing of heavy bodies turning over 
and over in slow rolling. When he rose to 
breathe he caught sight of spouting fountains, 
where the other whales were blowing in the 
sea. 

When the strangers came swimming toward 
him he hung back behind his mother. They 
glided about him, now and then touching him 
with their fins, noses, or tails. They twisted 
around so as to see him with their dull little 
eyes. Then they went on with their eat- 
ing and lazy rolling on the surface of the 
sea. 

The baby and his mother belonged to the 
herd now. It was time for them all to start 
north to colder waters, as summer was near. 
Food was growing scarce in that part of the 
ocean. When the whales stayed too long in 
one place barnacles and limpets fastened on 
the huge bodies, and made them uncomfort- 
able. One day the baby felt a tickling bar- 
nacle on his throat. He scratched so hard 



THE WHALE 37 



against a jagged rock that he tore a rent 
a foot long in the blubber. But it did 
not hurt much, and in a few davs it was 
healed. 

There were a number of other young whales 
in the herd. The biggest old father whale took 
the lead while the rest followed, on and on, 
moving through the sea all day long. Some- 
times they stopped to swim around and around 
with their mouths hanging open. The tiny 
crabs and other animals flowed in upon the 
great satiny white tongues. Sometimes they 
all took pleasant naps while floating on the 
surface. Once a sea-bird flew down and 
pecked at a barnacle on the baby's head. 

At night the herd lay still, sleeping beneath 
the stars. All around them the ocean glim- 
mered and twinkled. The ripples shone with 
fiery light. Now and then one or another big 
whale blew out his warm breath slowly and 
drowsily, his great sides heaving in a tremen- 
dous sigh. Then, when the morning came, 
and the sky grew bright at the horizon, they 
woke and plunged below for breakfast. They 
did not even look at the beautiful colors in 
the sky. 



38 WILDERNESS BABIES 

Nearly every day the young ones had a race. 
Off and away ! their bodies bending like bows, 
their broad tails churning the water into foam- 
ing waves behind them. Many a time the baby 
dived down, down, down, till the water looked 
black around him. Then, when he was almost 
smothering under the heavy weight of the sea, 
he turned in a hurry, and went rushing up 
with a bound and a puff. He shot out into 
the sunshine with a mighty leap. What a tre- 
mendous splashing he made as he fell back on 
his side, while all the other baby whales slapped 
the water with their tails under the shower of 
spray! 

One morning he had a terrible fright. It 
happened that he lagged behind the herd to 
catch one more mouthful of breakfast. When 
at last he was ready to follow the rest he saw 
three strange animals hurrying after him. 
They were almost as big as he was, and they 
had fierce little eyes and sharp white teeth. 
He was so afraid that he swam as fast as he 
could. 

They were really a kind of small whale that 
eats the tongues of large whales. They were 
called killers. All three raced after the baby. 



W^^ ^'^^9^9^^^m^ . 





The Whale. 

"The old mother whale came tearing back to the rescue." Page 39 



THE WHALE 39 



One caught hold of his lip and tried to 
drag his mouth open. The other two pulled 
and bit at the other side of the poor 
frightened fellow. Just as they had his 
mouth almost open, and were snapping like 
wolves at sight of his tongue, they heard the 
old mother whale come tearing back to the 
rescue. 

Before they had time to dart away she 
dived head foremost. Raising her great tail 
she swept it around and around, churning the 
water into foam. One dreadful blow crushed 
a killer, and the others rushed away. Seizing 
the trembling baby between her flippers and 
neck the mother hurried on to catch up with 
the herd again. 

This was excitement enough for one day. 
Indeed, it was the greatest adventure of the 
year, except for the narrow escape from the 
ice-floe. This last adventure happened when 
the herd was just leaving the north to swim 
south again. The baby whale was quite a big 
fellow by this time. By some accident he 
found himself shut into a bay by a floating 
mass of ice. 

The ice-floe covered the water and was driv- 



40 WILDERNESS BABIES 

ing closer and closer to the shore. The young 
whale swam ahead of it till he was almost on 
the beach. Still it kept pressing nearer and 
nearer. Again and again he tried to swim 
under it, but he could not hold his breath long 
enough to get through to the open sea. If 
he could not breathe he would drown, just like 
any other mammal. 

Finally, just as the ice was rubbing against 
the big black sides, he raised himself high in 
the air and threw his heavy body with a crash 
down on the floe. Luckily, he happened to 
strike a thin place. The immense cake of 
ice cracked and split. The whale gave a 
plunge and broke his way through to safety. 
He was glad enough to find the herd again 
and swim on with them toward the southern 
waters. 

So down along the shore the huge beasts 
went frolicking together. They leaped out of 
the sea, turning summersaults and tumbling 
over and over. They patted one another with 
such resounding smacks of their flippers that 
the noise was like thunder. Now they darted 
ahead, leaving a wake of dancing foam; now 
they dived, arching their backs, and flirting 



THE WHALE 41 



their tails high in the air. And through the 
quiet nights they lay with the waves lapping 
softly against them, with the starlight glisten- 
ing upon the great black bodies rolling in the 
swell. 



IV 
THE ELK (WAPITI) 
"ONE OF THE FLEETEST" 



ONE OF THE FLEETEST 

IT was the most interesting thing! The 
big brother elk, who was just a year old^ 
peered in through the branches, his ears 
pointed forward. His great soft eyes were 
shining, and his nostrils were quivering with 
excitement. There, on a bed of leaves in the 
mountain-thicket, lay a new little baby elk. 

He looked like the big brother, except for 
the white spots on his satiny brown coat. With 
his slender legs doubled under him he lay per- 
fectly still, not even twitching his ears, as old 
deer to catch the slightest sound. He was 
looking up at his big brown mother standing 
beside him. 

The brother elk edged nearer and nearer, 
till a branch crackled under his hoofs. In- 
stantly the old mother raised her head and 
pricked her ears in the direction of the sound. 
When she caught sight of the brother she 
drew back her lips from her teeth and squealed 
angrily. Her eyes gleamed. She began to 



46 WILDERNESS BABIES 

walk toward him, squealing and shaking her 
head to drive him away. He was so surprised 
that he snorted out loud. Then backing off, 
first one foot and then the other, he hid among 
some trees close by. 

He must have felt very lonesome as he 
waited there by himself on the mountain. 
He listened to every rustle of a leaf or 
crackle of a twig in the thicket where the 
baby was lying. Before this his mother had 
always been kind to him. He did not know 
why she drove him away, — when he was not 
doing any harm. The reason was because 
every little noise made her nervous. She was 
afraid wolves or panthers might come prowl- 
ing around there, where the baby lay helpless 
on the leaves. 

After a few days the baby scrambled to his 
feet and went staggering a bit unsteadily 
after his mother as she led the way out from 
the thicket. The big brother came timidly 
up to them. He smelled the little one very 
gently, nosing all over his soft dappled body. 
The mother did not pay much attention, and 
the baby was not afraid. He stood quite still, 
looking around with his shining eyes. 



THE ELK 47 



It was a beautiful world in May. All 
around him there were groves of aspens 
twinkling their silvery leaves in the early 
sunlight. Farther up the mountain-side dark 
evergreens grew thick among the rocks. 
Down the valley a brook splashed and gur- 
gled over stones on its way to a lake lying 
in the cool shadow of the pines. 

Very likely, although the baby elk could see 
well enough, he cared more for the things 
which he could smell. There was such a de- 
licious fragrance everywhere of spicy ever- 
greens and the damp sweet breath of mosses 
and blossoming flowers. Of course he was 
too young to taste the juicy grasses and tender 
twigs, but he surely enjoyed the tempting odor 
of it all. The world smelled very good to eat. 

Like all little mammals he drank milk till 
his teeth cut through his gums later in the 
year. Like the buffaloes the older elk had 
horny pads instead of teeth in the front of 
their upper jaws. They tore off a mouthful 
of grass or leaves with a jerk of the head 
and swallowed it half chewed. Then, during 
the heat of the day, when they were lying 
down to rest in the shade, or standing in pools 



48 WILDERNESS BABIES 

of water, they drew up the fodder from their 
stomachs and chewed it again. 

All summer long the little elk lived in the 
mountains with his mother and brother. At 
night he slept nestled close to them in some 
safe thicket. In the daytime he trotted beside 
them as they roamed grazing over the upland 
meadows and along the brooks. Though they 
were fond of feeding near the water they did 
not care so much as some other kinds of deer 
to eat lily-leaves. 

In the early part of the summer the mother 
and brother looked very ragged. Their thick 
winter coat began to fall out. It was so 
matted that it clung to the body like a torn 
blanket. Every time they rubbed against a 
bush or thorny tree their old hair was torn 
in long strips and tatters. When at last it 
had all been rubbed off their fresh short, 
summer fur shone out bright and glistening 
in the sunshine. 

Little by little the white spots on the baby's 
coat were fading. By the end of August he 
was all in plain brown like the older ones, 
with only a patch of white around his tail. 
Probably he did not notice the difference 




The Elk. 

' Grazing over the upland meadows." Page 48. 



THE ELK 49 



himself because he could not turn his head 
far enough to see many of the spots on his 
sides and neck. 

Indeed he was astonished enough one day, 
while still in the spotted coat, to see another 
little spotted elk come timidly out of a thicket 
of aspens. At first both babies stood still, 
with their ears pricked forward and their big 
soft eyes wide open. Then the first one 
bravely walked up to the other and smelled 
him all over. After that they were friends 
and played together. They could both say 
ba-a-a, and drink milk, and gallop over the 
grass, with their little hoofs kicking out 
behind. 

The next day another mother elk with a 
baby and a big brother joined the band. 
Then another family came, and another, till 
there were dozens and dozens of them all to- 
gether. Such scampering frolics as the little 
ones enjoyed! While the old mothers were 
quietly grazing over the steep slopes the 
babies raced from one rock to another. Each 
one tried to push up first to the highest point, 
and then stand there, looking down at the 
others. Once the roughest little fellow butted 



50 WILDERNESS BABIES 

another off a high rock and almost broke his 
leg. 

When a baby butted with his round little 
head it did not hurt much. But the big 
brothers all had sharp antlers sprouting from 
their foreheads. In the spring the knobs 
above their eyes had begun to swell and grow 
out into bony spikes covered with a velvety 
network of skin and veins. These antlers 
were different from the horns worn by the 
buffaloes. Every buffalo had a pair of horns 
that lasted all his life. The mother buffaloes 
had horns, but the mother elk did not have 
antlers. The antlers were solid bone instead 
of hollow like the horns. Each of the father 
elks and the big brothers had a new pair 
every spring to replace the old pair that 
dropped off during the winter. 

By mid-summer the antlers stopped grow- 
ing. Then the big brothers in the band 
pounded and rubbed their antlers against 
bushes and young trees, so as to strip off the 
velvety covering. When they had sham fights 
they could butt hard enough to hurt. They 
bumped their heads together, and pushed with 
all their might to see which was the strongest. 



THE ELK 51 



Autumn was not far off now, and the band 
of mother elk and young ones began to move 
down from the mountains to the foot-hills. 
In winter the snow lay so deep in the high 
valleys that they could not walk far or find 
enough to eat. Farther and farther down 
they wandered every day. The babies were 
learning to eat grass like the older ones. 

One morning the smallest baby elk was 
picking his steps along the edge of a cliff. 
He halted and raised his pretty head to look 
far up the canyon before him. There, away 
off against the pine-w^oods on the mountain- 
side, he caught sight of a spot of brown 
moving toward him. Nearer and nearer it 
came, till he saw that it was an animal even 
bigger than his mother. It was an old father 
elk coming down from his summer retreat in 
the highest gorges. 

In all his short lif e the baby had never seen 
such a stately and beautiful creature. His 
mother was not nearly so large as this elk, 
and she wore no antlers at all. The big 
brother's antlers were only short spikes with- 
out any prongs. On strode the newcomer, 
leaping over fallen trees and wading through 



52 WILDERNESS BABIES 

the brooks to join the band. His long black 
mane was waving on his neck ; his nostrils were 
quivering; his great eyes were flashing; his 
splendid antlers rose, branching high above his 
graceful head. 

The fine stranger stalked among the others 
and smelled them, in their way of getting ac- 
quainted. Then he began to feed with them 
all. The mother elk and little ones followed 
meekly when he started to lead the band down 
the mountain. He did not pay much attention 
to the babies. Sometimes he pushed them out 
of his way, or drove them hither and thither, 
as he pleased. He was a selfish old fellow and 
never thought of taking care of the others. 
Whenever he found a delicious tuft of juicy 
grass he hurried to munch it all by himself. 

As the frosty days passed by another father 
elk appeared, and then another and another. 
Each one wanted to be leader of the band. 
Many a snowy night the baby elk huddled 
close to his mother as he listened to the noise 
of the old father elk roaming through the 
woods. He could hear them snuffing the 
frosty air. They beat the bushes with their 
antlers and stamped on the crackling branches 



THE ELK 53 



underfoot. The snow lay thick on their brist- 
ling manes. Now here in the valley, now there 
high on the ridge, the sound of their whistling 
came pealing down through the still white 
woods in the moonlight. 

Often and often the baby trembled as he 
heard the shrill squealing of two old elk fight- 
ing together. Each one was trying to drive 
the other away from the band. They rushed 
together with a crash, and pushed and strained, 
with their antlers locked tight. Though the 
prongs could not cut through the tough skin 
of their shoulders, still the weaker one always 
had to give way and run. The other chased 
him off and then came back, whistling and 
barking in triumph, to be leader of the band. 

In a few weeks the old elk became tired of 
fighting. The band settled down to spend a 
peaceful winter together. Their fur grew 
long and thick to keep out the cold. On they 
travelled mile after mile. They were looking 
for a sheltered spot to be their home during 
the coldest weather. 

The old elk walked so fast that the babies 
had to gallop to keep from being left behind. 
Up hills and down gorges they went crashing 



54 WILDERNESS BABIES 

through thickets and over the rocks. They 
climbed steep cliffs and went leaping down 
narrow trails. Even the little ones were sure- 
footed. They never stumbled or slipped as 
they bounded over the dead logs and tangled 
vines between the trees. 

At last they found a wooded spot where the 
hills sheltered them from the bitterest winds. 
There was grass on the ground. There were 
plenty of young trees with twigs and buds 
and bark for them to eat. A swift little brook 
ran over the rocks not far away. 

Here in this place the band of elk spent the 
winter. When the snow fell deeper they trod 
it into narrow paths by walking from tree to 
tree to feed. These paths led to and fro, criss- 
crossing, and around in uneven curves all 
through the yard, as it may be called. With 
every storm the snow beside the paths piled 
higher and higher, till the baby could not see 
over the edges, even when he stretched up 
his neck. 

It must have been a dreary winter for the 
little fellow. Night after night he huddled 
beside his mother to keep warm. Sometimes 
the stars sparkled above the white earth, and 



THE ELK 55 



sometimes the wind sifted the icy flakes over 
their brown bodies. Day after day of cold 
and storm he walked along the paths from tree 
to tree. Here he could reach a bunch of dead 
leaves, there a cluster of twig-ends, or a mouth- 
ful of bark. 

The older elk were so much taller than he 
was that they could reach the higher branches 
by standing on their hind-legs and stretching 
out their necks. Often he went hungry, for 
the fodder near the paths was all eaten before 
spring. The snow was so deep outside the 
yard that he could not touch solid ground with 
his feet. Sometimes he pawed through the icy 
crust, and dug away the snow from over the 
grass. 

Once a pack of wolves came prowling near 
and tried to drive the elk out into the deep 
snow. Though the elk, like all deer, are the 
fleetest of mammals, the wolves could run 
better over the snow, for their broad paws 
did not sink in so far as the elk's slen- 
der hoofs. Instead of running away all the 
mother elk rushed squealing after the wolves 
and tried to stamp them to death. The mother 
elk were always very brave in taking care of 



56 WILDERNESS BABIES 

their little ones. The cowardly old fathers 
were afraid to fight anything, now that they 
had lost their sharp antlers. 

Spring came at last, and the snow melted 
from the hill-tops and then from the valleys. 
The first tender grass began to sprout in the 
meadows. The elk left their winter home and 
scattered over the plains in search of food. 
The sun shone and the soft winds blew. 

The baby elk followed his mother, when 
she left the others, and started up toward the 
mountains. He wandered after her, grazing 
as he went, till he lost her in a mountain 
thicket. While he was looking for her he 
heard a rustling of twigs. He peered through 
the branches, and there he saw a new little 
baby elk lying on a bed of leaves. The old 
mother was standing over him, and licking 
his satiny spotted coat with her long red 
tongue. 



V 

THE BEAVER 

"THE BEST BUILDER" 



THE BEST BUILDER 

OUT in the woods rain was pouring 
down steadily from the black sky. 
It beat against the leaves and trickled 
over the trunks of the trees and spattered into 
the pond. Now and then a flash of lightning 
glimmered over the water and twinkled in 
through the hole at the top of the little round 
house where the beavers lived. 

From the outside this house looked like a 
heap of old brush-wood on a tiny island in 
the middle of the pond. But inside of it there 
was a little room, like a cave, with a smooth 
floor and an arched roof. Along the sides of 
this room there were five beds of leaves and 
grass. On one of these beds lay three baby 
beavers fast asleep in the dark. 

The other beds were all empty. The big 
one at the end belonged to the father beaver. 
Before the babies were born in May he had 
gone away for the summer. He had started 
off with all the other old fathers in the beaver 



60 WILDERNESS BABIES 

* —————— 

village to have a good time in the woods up 
the brook. They played and feasted on roots 
and plants, while the mother beavers stayed 
home to take care of the babies. 

The other three beds belonged to the mother 
and to her two older children. On this rainy 
summer night they had gone out to eat their 
supper under the trees by the pond. 

Suddenly the three baby beavers opened 
their eyes with a start, and rolled off their bed. 
They had been awakened by the sound of a 
loud whack on the water outside. It was a 
noise made by the mother's flat tail as she 
dived down toward the door of her house._ 
Her front hall was a tunnel that led from 
the bottom of the pond to the floor of the 
dark little room. Through this she went 
swimming, while the waves bubbled and 
splashed around her. 

When the babies saw her round head poke 
up through the door in the floor they squeaked 
and ran to meet her. She was carrying a 
bundle of small sticks between her chin and 
her fore-paw. Each little beaver sat up on 
his hind-legs, with his tail propping him steady 
from behind. Then he took one of the sticks 



THE BEAVER 61 



in his hands and began to nibble the bark with 
his new yellow teeth. 

They were wonderful teeth. After the 
babies were too old to live on milk, four 
curved teeth grew out in the front of each 
little mouth. Two were in the upper jaw and 
two in the lower jaw. It was the strangest 
thing! The more these teeth gnawed the 
sharper they became. The inner side of each 
tooth was softer than the outer side. In bit- 
ing together, the inner edge wore down faster, 
and left the outer edge as sharp as a knife. 

The beaver belongs to the Order of 
Gnawers. Squirrels and rabbits and rats and 
many other mammals belong to this order. 
They all have these chisel-shaped front teeth, 
which keep on growing all their lives long. 
If any one of them is too lazy to gnaw every 
day his teeth grow so long that he cannot bite 
anything at all. Beavers are the largest of 
the gnawing animals, except the water-hog of 
South America. They have stronger teeth 
than any of the others. 

Not long after this stormy night the mother 
beaver decided to take the three babies out 
with her into the woods. She chose another 



62 WILDERNESS BABIES 

rainy evening because then their enemies were 
not likely to be wandering under the dripping 
trees. Bears and foxes and wild-cats hate to 
get wet, but beavers enjoy feeling the cool 
water trickle over their fur and splash on their 
tails. 

Except for their broad, flat tails, the three 
little beavers looked like rats covered with silky 
brown fur. The mother seemed like a giant 
rat, about three feet long from her round nose 
to the root of her tail. Instead of fur her 
tail was covered with thick skin. This skin 
was so creased and dented that it looked like 
scales. 

What an exciting evening it was for the 
babies! One behind the other they trotted 
down the dark tunnel after their mother. At 
first the floor was dry and hard. After a few 
steps their feet touched something wet. Soft 
mud oozed between the fingers on their fore- 
paws. Their hind- feet were webbed up to the 
toe-nails, and so did not sink in so deep as 
their fore-paws. Beavers are the only mam- 
mals which have webs on one pair of feet, and 
not on the other pair. They are half land 
animals and half water animals. 



THE BEAVER 63 



This was not the first time that the three 
little beavers had ventured into the tunnel. 
More than once before they had crept down 
as far as the water and waded about at the 
edge. But now they kept right on, splashing 
in farther and farther. The water grew deeper 
and deeper. In the dark they felt it wash up 
to their knees, and then up to their chins, and 
finally away over their backs and their heads 
to the roof of the tunnel. 

Away went the three babies swimming after 
the old mother. They held their breaths, and 
shut their ears tight. Their small fore-paws 
hung down by their sides. They paddled with 
their webbed hind- feet, and used their broad 
tails as rudders, to send them now this way, 
now that. 

It seemed the longest time to the last little 
beaver before his head popped up into the 
fresh air above the pond. He blinked his 
light-brown eyes, and winked away the drops 
on his eyelashes. Now and then a flash of 
lightning glimmered on the trees around the 
pond. Of course he did not know yet that 
his food came from those tall, shadowy things 
at the edge of the water. 



64 WILDERNESS BABIES ' 

Half-way to the shore a round, dark spot 
was ploughing through the water, with two rip- 
ples spreading out behind it. It was the head 
of the mother beaver. Behind her followed 
another head, and then another. The last little 
beaver swung his tail around and started after 
them. He puffed and sputtered when a wave 
washed over his nose. But he did not mind 
that at all, because this cool water was much 
pleasanter than the stale air in the warm room 
at home. 

There, under a bush on the bank, he saw his 
older brother and sister sitting on their tails, 
while they nibbled the bark from some sticks 
beside them. When the baby reached his hand 
toward the pile they grunted and sniffed at 
him. Just then a flash of lightning gleamed 
on their long, yellow teeth, and frightened the 
little fellow so much that he scampered after 
his mother and the two other babies. 

They followed a path into the woods. The 
father beavers in the village had made it by 
cutting down trees and bushes and dragging 
them out of the way. It was a straight path, 
and more than wide enough for the fattest old 
beaver. But the last baby was so much afraid 




The Beaver. 

a Across the pond to feast in the woods." Page 65. 



THE BEAVER 65 



of being left behind that he ran without look- 
ing on the ground. He stumbled over two 
low stumps, and bumped into a trunk at one 
side, before he caught up to the others. 

He saw the mother beaver standing on her 
hind-legs under a tree. She reached up as 
high as she could with her mouth and gnawed 
off a branch. When it fell crackling and 
rustling she called the three babies to come 
and learn how to cut their own sticks to eat. 
She showed them how to set their teeth against 
the bark, and tear off a chip with a jerk of the 
head. Another chip and another was gnawed 
out till the branch was cut in two. The mother 
could bite through a small stick with one snip 
of her jaws. 

After that, every night all summer long, 
the three babies followed their mother out 
through the tunnel and across the pond to 
feast in the woods. They ate tender grasses 
and roots as well as bark. Sometimes they 
went out before dark to romp and play tag 
in the pond. The biggest little beaver thought 
that it was the greatest fun to push the others 
off floating logs. He chased them round and 
round, splashing water in their faces and mak- 



66 WILDERNESS BABIES 

ing them duck their heads. They enjoyed the 
fun as much as he did, especially after they 
all scrambled upon the bank to rest. 

On land, the biggest baby was too fat and 
clumsy to move as fast as the other two. They 
danced about on their hind-legs, and pretended 
to step on his tail or pull his fur. It was 
beautiful fur, so fine and thick and soft that 
water could not soak through to the skin. 
The babies did not have a coat of coarse outer 
hair like the old beavers. When tired of play 
they sat up and scratched their heads and 
shoulders with the claws on their hairy fore- 
paws. Then, after combing their sides with 
their hind- feet, they curled down in the grass 
for a nap. 

There were plenty of other little low houses 
in the pond, and in each one lived a family of 
beavers. The three babies made friends with 
all the other babies. Together they explored 
every corner of the pond, from the brook at 
the upper end to the dam at the lower end. 

Very likely the little fellows believed that 
the dam had always been there. But in fact 
the old beavers had built it themselves. When 
they first came to that spot in the woods 



THE BEAVER 67 



they found only a brook flowing over a hard, 
gravelly bottom. They first cut down a bush 
and floated it along till it stuck fast between 
a rock and a clump of trees. Next they cut 
other bushes, and carried down poles and 
branches, till they had a tangle of brush 
stretching from one bank to the other. Upon 
this they piled sticks and stones and mud, and 
then more sticks and stones and mud, and then 
still more sticks and stones and mud. 

At last the dam was so high and solid that 
the water could not flow through. So it spread 
out in a pond above the dam till it was deep 
enough to trickle over the top and tinkle away 
in a little brook under the trees. 

Tiny islands were left here and there in the 
pond. The old beavers built their houses on 
the islands or on the bank. First each mother 
and father dug two tunnels from the bottom 
of the pond up through the earth to the floor 
of their house. One tunnel was to be used 
when going in and out during the summer. 
The other tunnel led to their winter pantry 
under the water. This pantry was to be a 
pile of fresh sticks cut in the woods every 
autumn. 



68 WILDERNESS BABIES 

Around the two holes in the floor the beavers 
laid logs and stones in a circle. Upon this 
foundation they piled sticks and sod to form 
walls and a roof. Then they plastered the 
house all over with mud. At the top of the 
roof they left a small hole, covered only with 
a tangle of sticks. This was for fresh air. 
Last of all they swam inside and made the 
walls even by gnawing off the sharp ends of 
the wood. Then the house was ready to be 
furnished with beds of leaves and grasses. 

Perhaps during the happy summer the 
babies believed that play was the most de- 
lightful thing in the world. But soon the 
father beavers came strolling back to the vil- 
lage to cut down trees for the winter. Then 
the little fellows found that work was even 
better fun than play. 

One night the three babies followed their 
parents into the woods and watched them cut 
down a tree. The father stood up on his 
hind-legs, propping himself with his tail, and 
began to cut a notch around the trunk. The 
mother helped on the other side. They 
gnawed upward and downward, digging out 
huge chips with their chisel teeth. The circle 



THE BEAVER 69 



grew deeper and deeper, till the father's head 
was almost hidden whenever he thrust it in to 
take a fresh bite. 

When finally the wood cracked and the tree- 
top began to sway all the family scampered 
away to the pond. They dived for the tunnel 
and hid in the house for a while. There was 
danger that some hungry wild-cat had heard 
the crash of the branches and had hurried 
there to catch them for its supper. 

As soon as it seemed safe to do so the 
beavers paddled out again and trotted away 
to the fallen tree. The parents trimmed off 
the branches and cut the trunk into pieces 
short enough to carry. The father seized a 
thick pole in his teeth and swung it over 
his shoulders. As he dragged it toward the 
pond he kept his head twisted to one side, 
so that the end of the pole trailed on the 
ground. 

The biggest little beaver tried to drag a 
smaller branch in the same way. When he 
rose on his hind-legs, so as to walk along 
more easily, he forgot to brace himself with 
his tail. The branch caught on a stone and 
tipped him backwards, heels over head. The 



70 WILDERNESS BABIES 

two other babies were rolling a short log by 
pushing it with their noses. At the sound of 
their brother's surprised squeals they gave the 
log a last wild poke. It seemed to make a 
jump over a bump, and then tumbled into a 
hole. There it stayed, though they pushed 
and pulled and puffed and grunted in trying 
to get it out again. 

It happened that the father beaver reached 
the pond just in time to help mend the dam 
with his thick pole. A pointed log had 
jammed a hole in the dam. The water was 
beginning to pour through the hole with a 
rush. If the pond should run dry the doors 
of the tunnels would be left in plain sight. 
Then probably a wolf, or some other enemy, 
would hide there to catch the beavers on their 
way from the woods to their houses. 

The old father pushed his pole into the 
water; then he jumped in, and, taking hold 
of it with his teeth, he swam out above the 
hole. When he let go the water carried the 
pole squarely across the break in the dam. 
The other beavers cut bushes and floated them 
down to weave across the hole. After that 
they scooped up mud and stones to plaster 



THE BEAVER 71 



the dam till not a drop trickled through the 
mended places. 

The next work to be done that autumn was 
to gather food for the winter. Some of the 
trees with the juiciest bark grew too far away 
to be easily dragged to the pond. All the 
grown-up beavers set to work to dig a canal. 
They dug and scooped and gnawed off roots, 
and dragged out stones, till they had made a 
long canal more than a foot deep. The water 
flowed into this from the pond. Then it was 
easy enough to float wood from the juicy trees 
down to the beaver village. 

Even the babies could help in towing the 
wood down the canal and across the pond to 
the different houses. Some of the wood be- 
came so heavy with soaked-up water that it 
sank to the bottom beside the doors, and 
could be packed in a solid pile as easily as on 
land. Most of the wood, however, kept light 
enough to float. Instead of heaping new 
sticks on top, the beavers pushed them under 
the top branches. Then more was pressed 
under that, and more under that, till the pile 
reached to the bottom. In the winter, of 
course, the top sticks could not be eaten, 



72 WILDERNESS BABIES 

because they would be frozen fast in the 
ice. 

The autumn days were growing frostier 
and frostier. After mending the dam and 
gathering their woodpiles, the beavers plas- 
tered a last coat of mud all over the outside 
of their houses. The mud froze hard and 
made the little rooms inside as safe as a 
fort, with walls two feet thick. The babies 
carried leaves and grasses for their fresh beds. 
With a bundle tucked between his chin and 
forepaw, each one hobbled along on three 
legs, " working like a beaver/' as the say- 
ing is. 

One cloudy night, when the beavers were 
busy out in the woods, something soft and 
cold began to float down through the chilly 
air. The biggest baby felt a sting on his 
nose. When he put out his tongue to lick it 
he touched only a speck of water. Bits of 
white sifted on his fur and melted in drops. 
Presently the ground began to look lighter 
colored. Something fluttered about his head 
and settled on his eyelashes. He winked and 
sneezed and squeaked to the other babies. 
They had never seen a snowstorm before. 



THE BEAVER 73 



When they jumped into the pond to paddle 
home something sharp and brittle cracked and 
snapped in the icy black water. One of the 
little fellows caught a bit in his mouth. It 
smarted on his tongue and then it was gone. 
It was the first time that he had ever tasted 
ice. 

The next night, when the beavers swam to 
the top of the pond, they bumped their heads 
against something hard. It cracked all around 
them. They pushed on, with the water lapping 
at the jagged edges. After they reached the 
shore they found it very tiresome to wade 
through the snow. Before the night was 
quarter past the old father hurried back to 
the pond. He was afraid that the ice might 
freeze too thick for them to break their way 
home again. He arched his back and slapped 
his tail on the water with an echoing whack 
to call the babies after him. 

All winter long the beavers lived quietly in 
their little homes under the snow. Most of 
the time they slept, each on his own soft bed 
in the dark. Whenever they were hungry 
they paddled down the tunnel which led to 
the woodpile. Gnawing off some sticks they 



74 WILDERNESS BABIES 

swam back with the bundles under their chins. 
They used the middle of the room for a din- 
ing-table. There they nibbled the bark. Then 
they carried the peeled sticks back into the 
pond. They did not like to have rubbish left 
on the floor. 

Sometimes the babies grew restless and tired 
of staying still in the room. They swam out 
into the pond and moved about under the ice. 
They hunted for roots of the yellow water- 
lily. It must have been hard to hold their 
breaths long enough to dig up the roots and 
paddle away back into the house. Once the 
biggest baby almost had a fight with one of 
his playmates over a juicy root. They pulled 
at it so roughly that it was torn to pieces. 

So the winter months slipped away. At 
last spring melted the ice on the pond. Here 
and there in the black water little brown heads 
came popping up. They went plowing toward 
shore, leaving v-shaped ripples stretching out 
behind. Up the banks scrambled the beavers, 
— mother beavers and father beavers, big 
brother beavers and big sister beavers, and 
all the little beavers who had been babies the 
year before. 



THE BEAVER 75 



Away roamed the fathers up the brook, to 
have a good time travelling all summer long. 
The grown-up brothers and sisters started out 
to build dams and houses of their own. The 
little fellows wandered into the woods to find 
their dinners of tender buds and twigs. The 
mothers ate the bark from fresh sticks, and 
then hurried back to carry milk to the new 
baby beavers, asleep on their soft beds at 
home. 



VI 
THE RABBIT (HARE) 
"THE TIMID ONE" 



THE TIMID ONE 

THE nest was a small hole scooped out 
of the turf and lined with bits of 
fur from the mother bunny's breast. 
The five baby bunnies lay packed close to- 
gether. Their long ears were pressed flat on 
their furry backs, and their hind-legs were 
doubled up under their round, little soft bodies. 

Over them rested a blanket of dry grass and 
fur matted together. The sunlight outside 
shone through tiny holes here and there. 
Once the bravest bunny poked up the cover 
and tried to look out. All he could see was 
a little roof of green grasses interlacing above 
the nest. The grasses rustled in the summer 
breeze. 

During the day the babies cuddled down fast 
asleep. Sometimes a red ant wandered into 
the nest. It clambered down from wdsp to 
wisp of dead grass and scurried across the 
bunnies' faces. That tickled so that they 
screwed up their pink noses and opened their 
round bright eyes for a drowsy minute. Once 



80 WILDERNESS BABIES 

a big spider crawled upon the edge and stared 
at them with all its eyes, till the bravest bunny 
scared it away with a flap of his ears. An- 
other time a bird flew down to the nest and 
pecked at the blanket till its bill stuck through 
and almost pricked one of the babies. 

Toward evening the bunnies began to wake 
up for the night. They squirmed about, curl- 
ing their toes, stretching their long legs, and 
cocking their ears to listen for the mother 
bunny's step. At last they heard the soft 
thump-thump-thump of her furry paws as she 
came leaping over the grass from the bushes 
where she had been dozing. How joyfully 
the babies wriggled at sight of her! As soon 
as she had lifted the blanket and crept under- 
neath they snuggled close to her. They were 
hungry for the warm milk which she had al- 
ways ready for them to drink. 

As the days passed the little bunnies began 
to grow too big for the nest. Their hind-legs 
felt stronger and stronger for jumping. In- 
deed, the bravest bunny had a naughty way 
of kicking his brothers and sisters. He set his 
heels against their soft sides and pushed in 
hard jerks, for the fun of making them squirm 



THE RABBIT 81 



and squeal. Sometimes they kicked back, but 
not very often, because they were afraid to 
make much noise. 

Their mother taught them to be as still as 
they could while she was absent. The only 
way for such helpless little creatures to escape 
being eaten by their many enemies was to keep 
out of sight. Snakes would not notice them if 
they stayed quiet in the nest. Hungry hawks 
and owls could not find out where they were 
hidden if they did not move. The bit of a 
blanket looked like a patch of dead grass. 
Foxes and wild-cats and the rest could not 
smell them so long as they lay still. 

They were timid little things, and their ears 
seemed to be always twitching to catch the 
least sounds. On some warm afternoons they 
woke up early, and waited for the mother to 
bring their supper of milk. Outside they 
heard the plop of grasshoppers jumping from 
stem to stalk. The flutter of butterflies and 
the buzzing of bees over the clover-blossoms 
sounded loud enough. The shrill whirring of 
a locust made them tremble and quake. Per- 
haps they were afraid that it was something 
coming to eat them up. 



82 WILDERNESS BABIES 

When the bunnies were strong enough to 
leave the nest they went to live in the brush 
with their mother. Away they all galloped 
over the grass. Their long ears flapped up 
and down, and the furry soles of their hind- 
legs twinkled behind them. They did not stop 
to look around till they were safe in the shel- 
ter of the bushes. Then every one of them 
turned, and sat up on his haunches with his 
little fore-paws in the air. With their ears 
pointed forward, and their round eyes shin- 
ing, they looked back at the grassy spot where 
they had lived in the hidden cosy nest. 

At that very minute, when they were all so 
excited and happy, the old mother caught sight 
of a fox stealing after them. At a sign from 
her the little bunnies sat as still as if they 
were made of stone. They were almost the 
same color as the sticks and dry leaves around 
them. Nobody would notice them unless they 
should move. 

But that sly old fox was not looking for 
them with his eyes; he was following their 
tracks, with his nose close to the ground. 
He smelled his way nearer and nearer. The 
trembling babies could see the sharp white 



THE RABBIT 83 



teeth between his lips. His narrow eyes 
gleamed hungrily. Finally he crept so near 
that he could smell them in the air. They saw 
him lift his head and snuff in their direction, 
one of his fore-paws raised for the next step. 

Suddenly the mother bunny sprang out 
before his face and darted off helter-skelter 
into the woods. She wanted to lead the fox 
away from her little ones. Away she dashed 
under the bushes and over the logs, up slopes 
and down gullies, dodging now this way now 
that. Once he was so close that he opened 
his jaws to seize her. At that she turned like a 
flash, and ran right between his legs. Then 
into a swamp she went bounding in great 
leaps. There the fox lost sight of her, and 
could not find her scent in the water. She 
left him nosing hungrily back and forth, 
while she hurried back to her babies. They 
were sitting as still as stones just where she 
had told them to stay. 

Almost the first thing the mother bunny did, 
after gathering her family in the woods, was 
to find different holes for hiding-places. One 
hole was in a hollow stump, and another was 
in an old woodchuck-burrow. She told the 



84 WILDERNESS BABIES 

little ones that they must not go near the 
holes, except when they could not escape in 
any other way. If they went often they 
would make a path, and then their enemies 
could find out their hiding-places. 

It was pleasant there in the underbrush of 
the woods. They felt almost safe with briers 
above them to keep away their hungry ene- 
mies. The smell of the mossy earth was warm 
and sweet. The buds and leaves and bark were 
spicy and fragrant. The bunnies sniffed hither 
and thither, twitching their noses and jerking 
their ears. 

When they stopped living on milk they 
learned to feed on grasses and juicy roots 
and twigs. The old mother showed them 
what was good to eat. Like the beavers and 
squirrels the bunnies belonged to the Order 
of Gnawers. Each one had four little nib- 
bling teeth in the front of his mouth, and 
grinding teeth in the back. They did not 
have such strong teeth as the beavers, who 
could cut down trees, or the squirrels, who 
gnawed hard nuts. 

Though the bunnies could not fight well, 
because they had no sharp claws and teeth, 




The Rabbit. 

"It was pleasant there in the underbrush of the woods." Page 84. 



THE RABBIT 85 



they could jump higher and farther and faster 
than any of their cousins. They soon found 
out that the best way to escape when chased 
by their enemies was to trust in the nimble- 
ness of their legs. 

Of course when they saw any hungry ani- 
mal looking for something to eat it was best 
for them to lie perfectly still so as to avoid 
being seen. But if the animal caught sight 
of them they must run and dodge and double 
and hide for their lives. It was generally 
wiser to keep on running till the other lost 
the scent rather than to creep into a hole. If 
the hungry hunter happened to be a mink or 
a weasel he could crawl in after them and kill 
them. 

The bunnies did not try to dig their own 
holes. They were really hares, though they 
were so much like rabbits, who were true bur- 
rowers. Once in the woods the bravest bunny 
saw a true rabbit. This rabbit had a family 
of little ones in a deep burrow. They had 
been born blind and naked, but the little hares 
had been born with their eyes open and fur 
on their bodies. True rabbits were brought 
to America from across the sea: 



86 WILDERNESS BABIES 

In spite of their dangerous adventures the 
bunnies enjoyed the long summer. Every 
morning at earliest dawn up they hopped 
from the forms. The spot of flattened grass 
where each furry body had been resting was 
called a " form." Away to the clover-field they 
went leaping, one by one. There they drank 
the dewdrops, and ate a breakfast of sweet 
green leaves. They took a nibble here and a 
nibble there. Then they sat up on their 
haunches and looked around to spy out a pos- 
sible enemy. Their round eyes twinkled this 
way and that, and their long ears twitched 
nervously at every sound. 

The twittering of the birds did not frighten 
them. They seemed to know that there was 
no danger-signal in the rustling of leaves on 
the trees, or the splashing of frogs in the 
pond. Even the crackle of twigs under the 
footsteps of a deer did not send them run- 
ning. They must have known that grass-eat- 
ing animals would not harm them. 

But the stealthy wriggling of a snake in 
the grass sent them scurrying wildly into the 
thickest underbrush. When they heard a stick 
crack under the trees they seemed to know at 



THE RABBIT 87 



once what kind of animal was creeping near. 
At the soft tread of a fox or a wild-cat they 
sat as still as stones, unless they knew that 
they had been seen. If that happened they 
bounded away in a race for life. 

When the sunshine fell bright on some 
sandy hillside the bunnies went there, and 
stretched out like kittens in the pleasant 
warmth. They squirmed and blinked and 
turned slowly over and over. They lay on 
their backs and waved their paws in the air. 
They had five toes on each fore-paw and four 
on each hind-paw. Even then, while twisting 
and stretching in enjoyment, they were on the 
alert. At the sound of a caw from a neigh- 
boring tree, or at the sight of a hawk hover- 
ing far above, they all leapt to their feet, and 
scampered out of sight in a twinkling. 

Then for hours they sat on their forms in 
the shade of the bushes and dozed, half asleep, 
but ready to bound away at the first hint of 
danger. The scream of a blue jay startled 
every bunny wide awake in an instant. The 
jays always saw everything in the woods. The 
bunnies waited, without stirring, till they could 
find out what the trouble was. Sometimes it 



88 WILDERNESS BABIES 

was a dog hunting for rabbits; sometimes it 
was a snake coiled in the sun, or a baby fox 
playing with his own tail; sometimes it was 
only a red squirrel chattering and scolding at 
the blue jay. 

On warm afternoons the winged ticks hov- 
ered about, biting the bunnies on the tips of 
their ears and sensitive noses. Then the bun- 
nies hid under skunk cabbages in the marshy 
spots. The bad smell kept the ticks away. It 
was cool and pleasant there. The five babies 
lay still, listening to the soft whirring and 
drowsy buzzing of insects, in the hot sunshine 
beyond the marsh. 

After the sun went down the bunnies scat- 
tered to find their supper of tender twigs or 
grasses or roots. Always, while they nibbled, 
they kept twitching their ears forward and 
back. Every minute or two each one paused 
to sit erect, and roll his bright eyes in all direc- 
tions. All the time his little jaws were work- 
ing busily. Then perhaps they dressed their 
fur coats, combing their ears with their paws, 
and biting the burrs from their vests and socks. 

Off with a hop, skip, and jump for a frolic 
in an open space in the woods! What a gay 



THE RABBIT 89 



time the five little bunnies had there with their 
friends! They went leaping, one after an- 
other. Some tore through the ferns and 
hopped over the logs, with their long ears 
flapping. They sprang straight up into the 
air, kicking out their hind-legs. They jumped 
over each other, and scurried wildly round 
and round. One whirled about like a kitten, 
chasing his own short tail. The bravest 
bunny danced on his hind-legs all alone in 
the moonlight. 

When summer was over the cool days of 
autumn found the bunnies friskier than ever. 
They had half a dozen smaller brothers and 
sisters by this time, because the old mother 
had two or three nestfuls of little ones in a 
year. There was plenty for everybody to eat 
in the woods and fields. The little creatures 
feasted on roots and apples and soft-shelled 
nuts till they grew round and sleek. The 
bravest bunny became so fat and lazy that he 
hated to run. Whenever he was being chased 
by any enemy he slipped into the first hole 
he saw. He would certainly have been caught 
one day if the weasel behind him had not 
happened to have a lame foot from his last 



90 WILDERNESS BABIES 

fight. When he stopped to untangle it from 
a strawberry-vine the bunny had time to 
escape. 

Winter was hard on the bunny family. 
They could not run so fast through the soft 
snow as on the firm ground. Their enemies 
could see their footprints, and follow more 
easily. Often and often, when a little fellow 
had gone out to nibble twigs and buds, he 
heard something move behind him. And 
there, not far away, he saw a fox ready to 
spring on him. 

The bravest bunny slept under a rotten log. 
He always slept with his legs doubled under 
him, fixed for a great jump away, in case 
any hungry animal came nosing around. He 
did not mind the cold, for his fur was fine 
and thick and warm. Even inside his mouth 
the soft fur grew, as well as on the soles of 
his feet. 

When spring came the bunnies were more 
glad than any of the other small creatures in 
the woods. It was a joy to feel the warm 
breezes blow their fur. They did not care so 
much for the warmth as for the tender buds 
which it opened on the trees. Green leaves 



THE RABBIT 91 



came peeping out of the ground, and flowers 
blossomed in sheltered nooks. 

Birds were singing, and frogs began their 
croaking in the meadows. The w r oods were 
busy with the hurry-skurry of little feet. 
Now once more there was plenty for every- 
body to eat. The bunnies were glad because 
of that. But perhaps they were even more 
glad, because now their hungry enemies could 
hunt many other animals besides the timid 
bunnies. 



VII 
THE SQUIRREL 

"THE ONE WITH THE PRETTIEST TAIL" 



THE ONE WITH THE PRETTIEST 

TAIL 

THE four baby squirrels were tired of 
staying in their soft nest in the hol- 
low tree. They wanted to find out 
what was going on in the world outside. As 
they cuddled together in the shadowy hole 
they could hear the queerest sounds. They 
cocked their heads curiously at the rustling 
and whispering of the wind among the leaves. 
They heard chirping and singing and a sil- 
very tinkle, tinkle from the brook. Once a 
bee flew buzzing right over their heads, and 
made them clutch one another in terror. 

One morning, when the old mother squirrel 
was away hunting for birds' eggs to eat, the 
smallest baby crept to the mouth of the hole 
and peeped out with his round bright eyes. 
All around and above him there were won- 
derful green things flickering and fluttering. 
Twinkles of sunlight danced through the 
leaves and dazzled him. Something soft and 
cool blew back the new bristles on his lips and 



96 WILDERNESS BABIES 

ruffled his satiny red fur. He was so much 
interested that he sat there, staring and star- 
ing, till the other little ones began to squeak 
and scold him for shutting out the light. 

After he crept down again to the nest the 
others climbed up, one by one, and looked out. 
They winked and blinked at each wonderful 
sight; they sniffed the strange odors, and 
twitched their eager little heads at every new 
sound. The scream of a blue jay in the tree- 
top above sent them scampering inside again, 
to cuddle close together in the darkest corner. 
It was fun to see something new and exciting, 
even if it did make them shiver all over. 

Soon the mother squirrel came springing 
from branch to branch to reach the hollow. 
How the babies squeaked and chattered in 
welcome ! Very likely they told her about the 
wonderful sights and sounds and smells in 
the strange world outside the hole. The 
smallest one clasped his fore-paws around her 
neck, and coaxed her to let them all go out 
to find more interesting things. It was stupid 
there in the dark nest, with nothing to watch 
except the patch of light across the opening 
above them. 



THE SQUIRREL 97 

The old squirrel knew that the little ones 
were not strong enough yet to leave the nest. 
To be sure, they had grown and changed very 
much since the first days. Then they had been 
ugly little creatures, like tiny pug-dogs, with 
big heads, no fur, and their eyes tight shut. 
Now they were half as big as she was herself. 
Their eyes were like jewels, and their red fur 
was smooth as satin. 

But their tails, with only fringes of hair 
along the sides, were not nearly so fluffy as 
the mother's. Her tail was long and plumy. 
It curved so gracefully over her back that she 
seemed to be sitting in its shadow. One name 
of the squirrel is " shadow-tail." 

For a few weeks longer the four babies 
scrambled about the doorway and looked long- 
ingly out at the wonderful green tree-world. 
They did not dare to step out upon the slender 
branches, for fear of falling off. It made 
them feel dizzy to look away down to the 
ground below. They did not know how to 
cling to the limbs with their feet while they 
balanced themselves with their tails. 

When the young squirrels were almost 
strong enough to learn to run and climb in 



98. WILDERNESS BABIES 

the tree, the mother began to build an airier 
home higher up the trunk. The old nest was 
growing too warm for comfort, as summer 
brought the long sunny hours. The squirrel 
father was not there to help his mate. She 
had driven him away before the babies came. 
She thought the tree belonged to her, and that 
she needed all the room in the hollow for her 
little ones. She chased him off to live in the 
woods with all the other squirrel fathers till 
the babies were big enough to take care of 
themselves. 

The mother squirrel worked on the new 
nest in the early morning. She bit off leafy 
twigs and carried them to the top of the tree. 
There, where two branches forked, she packed 
the sticks and leaves together in a loose ball. 
Then she pushed a doorway through, at one 
side or another, just as she happened to be 
standing. This was not such a neat home 
as one in the next tree. That other mother 
squirrel built her new nest of strips of bark 
tied together with ribbons of soft fibre. 
Over the doorway she hung a curtain of 
bark, and lifted it up carefully whenever she 
went inside. 



THE SQUIRREL 99 

At last the new home was ready. The old 
mother hurried down to the hollow and called 
the babies to come out and follow her. They 
stepped out, one after another, just as care- 
fully as they could. The smallest baby came 
last. He dug his claws into the bark and 
hung on. The branch seemed so narrow that 
he trembled from fear of falling. The tree 
swayed in the wind. The branch bounced up 
and down, and a leaf blew in his face. The 
poor little fellow shut his eyes, because every- 
thing seemed to be whirling round and round. 

When he opened his eyes again he saw the 
three other little ones climbing up the trunk 
above him. They clutched the bark with their 
claws and moved forward, one paw at a time. 
The mother was running on ahead of them. 
Every few steps she turned around to coax 
them on faster. 

Finally they reached a narrow branch which 
led over to the new nest. They crawled out 
on it, lifting one foot and then setting it 
down before lifting another. The farther 
they crept the narrower the branch grew 
under them. Their little paws began to slip 
over the smoother bark. The one in front 



100 WILDERNESS BABIES 

tried to turn around, but he was afraid of 
losing his balance. So they all three scrambled 
backwards to the safe trunk. 

The mother ran back to them, and chattered 
and scolded. Again and again they started 
out over the branch, and then went scrambling 
back. When at last the mother had coaxed 
them across to the nest she looked around for 
the smallest baby. There he was away down 
at the door of the old nest. The old squirrel 
was tired out. Her fur was ruffled and her 
ears drooped. She ran down to the nest and 
began to scold the little fellow. He sat up 
and put his paws around her neck, as if he 
were begging her to let him stay there. But 
she started him up the trunk and pushed him 
along to the branch. Then she took hold of 
him by the neck and carried him across to the 
new home. 

After that the little ones were taken out 
every morning to practise climbing. Little by 
little they learned to balance themselves on the 
branches. Their tails were fluffy enough by 
this time to be of use in balancing. First to 
one side, then to the other, each baby tilted his 
tail as he crept along, step by step. Every 



THE SQUIRREL 101 

day they could move a little faster. Finally 
they were able to chase one another up and 
down, from branch to branch. They went 
running around the trunks, skipping and leap- 
ing from slender twig to twig, and jumping 
from one tree to another, even through the air. 

Sometimes one or another missed his foot- 
ing after a reckless jump. Often he caught 
hold of a branch below by a single toe and 
lifted himself up to a firmer foothold. Or 
if there was no branch within reach, he 
spread out his fur, and flattened his tail, and 
went sailing down to the ground, almost as 
if he could fly. They never seemed to get 
hurt. 

The little squirrels appeared to be always 
doing something. They turned summersaults 
in the grass, or swung by one paw from the 
tip of a tough branch. There was always 
something to do or to see. Now they chat- 
tered at a blue jay, or chased a toad for the 
fun of watching him hop. Now they caught 
beetles to look at, or, safe in a tree, they 
scolded at some fox slinking along through 
the woods. And every day there was the 
excitement of finding something to eat. 



102 WILDERNESS BABIES 

The babies lived on milk till they were al- 
most as heavy as their mother. Then she 
began to feed them with fruit and buds and 
grubs, which she first chewed for them. Like 
the beavers and the hares and rabbits each had 
four chisel teeth in the front of its mouth. 
They needed to gnaw hard nuts or bark every 
day to keep these teeth from growing too 
long. 

When the young squirrels were three months 
old in July they were big enough to take care 
of themselves. Away they scampered from 
the old home tree and found new homes in 
stumps and hollows. The smallest one used 
to curl up in an old robin's nest to sleep at 
night. All day long they were just as busy 
as they could be. 

There were cones to be gathered from the 
evergreens. The little squirrels ran up the 
trees in a hurry, and, cutting off the cones 
with their sharp teeth, tossed them over their 
shoulders to the ground. Every few minutes 
they scurried down to bury the cones under 
the pine-needles for the winter. Sometimes a 
drop of sticky pitch from the cut stems was 
rubbed against their fur. That made them 



THE SQUIRREL 103 

so uncomfortable that they had to stop and 
lick it off. 

The squirrels loved to be clean. Ever since 
they were tiny babies, with their new red fur, 
they always helped one another with washing 
their faces, and combing their tails with their 
claws. They were careful to run along logs 
over a muddy spot. If one happened to get 
wet he dried himself with his fluffy tail. 

When they were tired of eating seeds and 
twigs they hunted for grubs. Clinging to 
the bark of a dead tree they listened till they 
heard something gnawing beneath the surface 
ever so softly. Then, tearing off the bark in 
ragged pieces, they pounced upon the flat 
whitish grub beneath and ate it up. They 
were fond of mushrooms, too, and seemed to 
know which were poisonous and which were 
good to eat. 

But the best time of all came in the 
autumn when nuts were ripe. Then what 
fun the little squirrels had! Early every 
morning out popped the little heads from 
the hollow stumps and logs. The big round 
eyes twinkled eagerly in every direction. 
Then, whisk I they were out, with a bark and 



104 WILDERNESS BABIES 

a squeak! Scampering to the top of a tree 
each one took a flying leap to a branch of 
the next. Up and down, on and across, they 
followed the squirrel-paths through the woods 
till they reached the grove, where the nuts 
were ripening. 

It was a busy place, with little wings flut- 
tering and little feet pattering, and yellow 
leaves drifting down in the sunshine. All the 
squirrels scurried to and fro, picking one nut 
here, and another there. They sat on the 
branches, with their bushy tails curving over 
their backs, and held the nuts in their fore- 
paws to nibble. The smallest baby could open 
the hardest walnut, and clean it out in less 
than a minute. In the oddest way he seemed 
to know exactly where to bore through the shell 
so as to strike the broad side of the kernel. 

All the while the blue jays and the thrifty 
chipmunks were gathering nuts and corn, and 
hiding their stores away for the winter. That 
seemed so interesting that the squirrels gath- 
ered some too. The smallest one stuffed his 
cheeks full of nuts and scampered back to his 
latest home in a hollow stump. The next 
mouthful he brought was hidden in a fork 



THE SQUIRREL 105 

of a tree and covered with leaves. Then he 
tucked away a few chestnuts in the cracks of 
the bark on an oak-tree. By that time he was 
tired of working at this, so he scurried around 
to find out how many nuts the other young 
squirrels were saving for the winter. 

Autumn passed away, and the days grew 
colder. In the woods the leaves were all fallen 
and the branches were stripped bare of nuts. 
Every morning when the squirrels poked out 
their heads the air nipped their noses. Frost 
sparkled on the dead grass. The chipmunks 
had crept into their holes for the winter, and 
most of the birds had flown away south. 

The squirrels were not quite so gay now as 
in the autumn days, when they danced upon 
the branches and whistled and chuckled over 
the good things to eat and the curious sights 
to see. They slept with their warm tails 
wrapped over their noses. They still ran 
busily through the tree-tops, except when 
snow or icy rain kept them shut within their 
holes. They ate all the nuts they could find, 
and dug up the buried pine-cones. They 
climbed the hemlock-trees and ate the seeds. 
Sometimes they found a delicious frozen apple 



106 WILDERNESS BABIES 

or some forgotten acorns. Once the smallest 
squirrel happened to dig up a heap of chest- 
nuts from between two stones under the snow. 
He could not remember whether he had hid- 
den them himself or not. How he snickered 
and danced when he saw them! 

Late in the winter the squirrels had eaten 
all the nuts and cones within reach. They 
were so hungry on many a day that they 
tried to creep into a chipmunk's hole and steal 
his store of food. However he was smaller 
than they were, and he had wisely made one 
bend in his tunnel too small for them to pass. 
Then they had to live on buds and barks and 
seeds as best they could till spring started the 
tender green plants to growing. 

The squirrels gnawed the bark of the maple- 
trees and drank the sweet sap that came ooz- 
ing out. Later there were elm buds to nibble 
and birds' eggs to suck. The woods were once 
more green with juicy leaves. All the squir- 
rels went to housekeeping. Soon in almost 
every tree there was a new family of wonder- 
ing little squirrels peeping out of their hollow 
with their round, bright eyes. 



VIII 
THE BEAR 

"ONE THAT SLEEPS ALL WINTER 1 



ONE THAT SLEEPS ALL WINTER 

OUT in the woods the snow fell deeper 
and deeper. It piled higher and higher 
around the hollow tree in which the 
mother bear and her two little bears were sleep- 
ing. The snow had drifted over the opening 
and made it all dark inside. 

Once in a while the two babies woke up 
and whimpered for more milk, as they tumbled 
clumsily about on the bed of leaves. Then 
the old bear opened her sleepy eyes and licked 
their glossy little black bodies while she nursed 
them. After that they all fell drowsily quiet 
again, and slept and slept. 

So the weeks slipped away while the babies 
sucked milk, or slept, snuggled close to their 
big, warm, furry mother. She had been sleep- 
ing all winter. The autumn before she had 
crept into the hollow tree to stay until spring. 
She did not eat a mouthful in all that time. 

Now as the days grew warmer outside the 
old mother bear began to feel more wide 
awake. One morning she pawed a hole 



110 WILDERNESS BABIES 

through the snow at the opening of the hol- 
low and crawled out to find something to eat. 
The two little bears had their eyes open at 
last. They lay still on the nest and blinked at 
the light that shone dimly in through the hole. 

Now and then they heard the soft plop of 
a bunch of snow dropping from the evergreen 
trees in the woods. The bare branches of the 
aspens clicked together in the March wind. 
They heard the gurgle of water lapping over 
melting ice. The tap-tap-tap of a woodpecker 
on the bark of their hollow tree sounded like 
thunder inside. Once a red squirrel ran squeak- 
ing over the snow outside. 

Before very long they heard footsteps 
thumping softly up to the hole, and their 
mother's big black body came scrambling in. 
The two cubs whined for joy, and rubbed 
against her legs. They were hungry again, 
and wanted their dinner. The thin old bear 
had not found much to eat herself. It was 
too early in the year for berries, and the ants 
were still in their underground homes. She 
had caught a frog in the brook, and found a 
few blades of grass to munch. 

After that she went out every day, for it 



THE BEAR 111 



seemed as if she grew hungrier and hungrier. 
Once she found a frozen deer. After eating 
all she could of it she covered the rest with 
leaves until the next day. Sometimes she 
caught a chipmunk under a log. It was only 
in the early spring that the old black bear ate 
much meat, for usually she liked fruit and 
roots and nuts better. 

Meanwhile the two little bears stayed safe 
in the den till their teeth were cut and the 
claws grew sharp and strong. Then they 
played outside for a little every day. They 
wrestled together and tumbled about in the 
sunshine, like clumsy puppies. They were 
careful not to creep too far away from the 
den. At any strange sound or smell away 
they scampered head first into the hole, with 
their little wrinkled black feet kicking out 
behind them. 

At last they were strong enough to set out 
on their travels with the old mother. Very 
likely she gave them each a good washing 
and combing before they started. She could 
use her fore-paws like hands. When the cubs 
squealed and tried to bite, while she was brush- 
ing them, she slapped them with her big paw. 



112 WILDERNESS BABIES 

She could use her paws for digging, and for 
carrying food to her mouth. With the sharp 
claws she could tear meat or logs to pieces. 

The two little ones must have been delighted 
to think of leaving the tiresome den in the 
hollow tree. Like all bears they loved to 
travel. Down the valley they ambled, step- 
ping clumsily on the flat soles of their feet. 
Bears do not walk lightly on their toes, as 
do the graceful animals who belong to the 
cat family. 

The old mother moved on with her head 
held low, while the babies waddled after her. 
They did not look around much at the won- 
derful mountains, with the dark evergreens 
and rocks scattered over the yellow gravel. 
They did not notice the blue sky above, for 
their close-set eyes were rather nearsighted. 
Though they could not see very well they 
sniffed keenly at every strange smell. 

There were many new delicious smells of 
warm earth and green plants and furry rab- 
bits and squirrels and birds and strawberry 
blossoms. The cubs imitated their mother in 
everything she did. They stepped in the 
same foot-tracks, and jumped over the same 



THE BEAR 113 



logs at the same places. Whenever she stopped 
to sniff they rose on their little hind-legs and 
twitched their pointed brown noses in the air. 

Once they came to a footprint in the gravel. 
It was a footprint of a grizzly bear ever so 
much bigger than the old black bear. The 
cubs looked at their mother to see how she 
was acting. Then they copied her. They 
drew back their lips from their white teeth 
and growled baby growls, while their little 
eyes gleamed, and the hairs on their backs 
ruffled up stiffly. Grizzlies sometimes killed 
black bears. 

Soon they reached the spruce grove where 
the red ants lived. Scattered over the gravel 
there were rounded hills, with tiny red crea- 
tures hurrying in and out of their holes, and 
around and to and fro. The little bears 
looked at the ants and then watched their 
mother as she sat down beside a hill and licked 
up a mouthful. After a minute down they 
sat, and scraped their pointed tongues over 
the ant-hills. 

The ants tasted as sour as vinegar, and made 
the young ones wrinkle their noses just at first, 
because they were used to drinking sweet milk. 



114 WILDERNESS BABIES 

More than once a fierce little ant gave a nip- 
ping bite to the red tongues that squirmed over 
the gravel. That made the babies squeal, and 
rub their mouths with their paws. When some 
ants crawled up on their fur the bears licked 
them off without getting any gravel mixed in. 

As the morning sunshine grew warmer the 
cubs began to feel tired and sleepy. It had 
been such an exciting day ever since starting 
out from the old den at sunrise! The mother 
walked off to a shady spot under thick ever- 
greens, and they all curled down for a nap. 
The babies snuggled close together, curling 
their paws and tucking their noses into their 
fur. Closing their eyes, while their fat little 
sides heaved in a long sigh of content, they 
fell fast asleep. Those ants had tasted so 
good! 

Very early every morning the two cubs set 
off with their mother to find something to 
eat. In the heat of the day they took a nap. 
Late in the afternoon they went out again 
and feasted till dark, or even later, when 
berries were plenty. Sometimes they slept in 
a hollow log, or in a cave, or in a sheltered 
thicket. 



THE BEAR 115 



Before lying down the old bear was always 
careful to walk several hundred yards in the 
same direction in which the wind was blowing. 
If any enemy happened to follow their trail 
while they were asleep they could smell him 
in the wind and get away in time. One night 
they really did smell a wolf coming nearer and 
nearer. They stole off through the woods. 
The old mother showed the cubs how to step 
softly, setting down each big padded foot 
where it broke no stick and rustled no leaf. 

The bears learned to eat all sorts of food. 
There were the delightfully sour ants in their 
hills or hidden under rocks and old logs. The 
cubs soon grew strong enough to turn over 
the rocks and logs for themselves. Leaning 
on one fore-leg, each little fellow raised the 
stone with the other fore-leg, and gave it a 
shove backward, so that it would not fall on 
his toes. Away rolled the stone, and down 
went the greedy head to lick up every ant in 
sight. Then a sweep of a paw uncovered the 
beetles and worms and crickets that had run 
to hide deeper. Sometimes the old mother 
gripped her claws in both sides of a rotten 
log and tore it open. The little bears gobbled 



116 WILDERNESS BABIES 

up the worms and insects inside as fast as 
they could. 

All the spring and early summer the three 
bears hunted for worms and insects in this 
way. They dug up wild roots with their 
noses, just as pigs do. One day the cubs 
smelled a delicious smell near a flat stone. 
They hurried to push the stone away, and 
there they found a heap of nuts. They 
stuffed their mouths full at once, while the 
little chipmunk, to whom the nuts belonged, 
squeaked angrily at them from under a heavy 
rock. 

Later in the summer the berries were ripe. 
That was the time for little bears to be happy 1 
First the fragrant red strawberries grew red 
in the fields. The berries were so small, and 
the hungry mouths were so large, that many 
a bite was mixed with leaves and grass. How r - 
ever, the cubs did not object to that, even when 
a fat white grub or two was pulled up with 
the roots of the strawberry plants. 

After the strawberries other berries ripened 
along the bank of the river at the edge of the 
woods. The mother bear knew just where the 
biggest ones grew. Many a happy day they 



THE BEAR 117 



spent picking the fruit. When the weather 
was cloudy and cool they did not stop for 
naps. Each one walked along from bush to 
bush, raising his head and wrapping his tongue 
around a branch. Then with a downward pull 
he stripped off leaves and berries and all, and 
munched and munched. They could stand on 
their hind- feet to reach the higher branches. 

The bears had broad grinding teeth in the 
sides of their jaws, and so they could chew 
their food. Animals like the cat and the dog 
have only cutting teeth. They tear their food 
into pieces small enough to swallow, and then 
gulp it down without chewing. 

At noon they went down to the river for a 
drink. First they snuffed around carefully, 
and then lapped up the water. If the day 
was very warm the cubs waded in and lay 
down to cool off. Sometimes the old mother 
took her nap lying in the water. Once in 
a while they caught a frog or a live fish by 
giving a jump and quick slap before it could 
swim away. 

In late summer the wild plums ripened in 
the woods. The old bear shook the trees and 
sent the red fruit hailing down upon the 



118 WILDERNESS BABIES 

scrambling cubs. On one specially delightful 
day they found a hollow tree in which bees 
had been storing honey for the winter. 

They saw the bees buzzing around a hole 
high up on the trunk. One of the cubs 
climbed up. Wrapping his hind-legs around 
the tree he held on with one fore-paw, while 
with the other he dipped out the honey and 
stuffed it into his mouth. All about him the 
air was gray with bees. They stung him on 
his nose and ears and eyelids. He did not 
mind that much, except when one bit his 
tongue. Then he thrust out his tongue and 
mumbled and growled for a moment. He 
had never before eaten anything so delicious 
as honey. 

After the pleasant summer came the frosty 
autumn with its ripening nuts. The cubs 
climbed trees and sat on the branches, with 
their black legs dangling. The old bear shook 
the trees to bring down the nuts. Once she 
shook so hard that one of the little bears 
lost his hold and fell. He tumbled down in 
such a limp soft heap that he was not hurt 
at all, but bounded up again like a rubber 
ball. 



THE BEAR 1J9 



At another time the mother saw a big grizzly 
bear coming through the woods. When the 
cubs heard her warning grunt they shot up 
the tree like jumping- jacks, and hid in the 
thick leaves near the top. There they were 
safe, for the grizzly was too heavy, and its 
claws were too long, for climbing. Grizzly 
bears are the largest beasts of prey in the 
world. Sometimes when very hungry they 
will eat their cousins, the black bears. 

The days kept growing colder little by little, 
and twilight came a few minutes sooner every 
evening. The air was frosty at night, and 
somehow the three bears felt drowsier and 
drowsier. Their naps lasted longer every 
afternoon. On some cold days they curled 
up on dry ledges in the sunshine and slept 
from morning to night. They were sleek and 
fat from their feasts of acorns and nuts. 

All this while the old mother bear was be- 
coming more and more cross. When the cubs 
tried to play with her she slapped them, and 
pushed them away whimpering. It was time 
for them to take care of themselves. Very 
likely she did not want to be bothered with 
them all winter long. 



120 WILDERNESS BABIES 

So one day the two little bears walked off 
by themselves. They roamed through the 
woods, looking for some place which would 
be a warm den. One of them dug a cosy 
hole under a big root and curled down for 
his winter's sleep. The other crept between 
two rocks that almost touched over his head. 

Outside the snow began to fall. It blew in 
through the cracks and powdered down upon 
the little bear's thick fur. Very soon it had 
stuffed all the cracks and drifted higher over 
the rocks and logs. It went whirling from 
the ledges into the valleys; it fell deeper and 
deeper over the three dens and shut out the 
cold. 

The little bears breathed more and more 
slowly, with their noses warm in their furry 
fore-arms. Their little fat sides rose and fell 
ever so faintly. Their hearts beat more softly. 
They were fast asleep for the winter, while 
the snow fell and the icy winds blew on the 
mountains without. 



IX 

THE FOX 

"THE WISEST ONE" 



THE WISEST ONE 

ALMOST the first thing that the small- 
est baby fox remembered was being 
carried in his mother's mouth from 
one den to another. His woolly little red body 
hung limp between her long white teeth. That 
was the safest way; for if he had held stiff 
or wriggled she might have closed her jaws 
tighter and pinched him. 

It was very early in the morning, and the 
rising sun was just lighting up the tops of 
the trees. The birds were singing their gay- 
est May songs. Here and there dewdrops 
sparkled, where the level sunbeams glinted 
across the leaves. Under a bush a rabbit sat 
up very still, and stared with round, fright- 
ened eyes at the mother fox. 

The mother fox did not see the rabbit. 
She stepped along swiftly. Her slender paws 
hardly rustled a leaf or snapped a twig. She 
looked like a graceful red dog, with pointed 
ears and yellow eyes and beautiful plumy tail. 



124j WILDERNESS BABIES 

This plumy tail seemed to float out in the air 
behind her, as if she were blowing lightly be- 
fore the wind. 

When she reached the new den she did not 
stop an instant at the front door. The freshly 
dug earth was scattered around there in plain 
sight. In digging this new burrow she and 
the father fox had left the dirt there on 
purpose, to make their enemies think that this 
hole was the real entrance to the den. A few 
feet underground they had closed the tunnel 
with a heap of earth. At the other end they 
had made a new opening hidden behind gray 
rocks in a thicket. 

To this secret door the mother fox carried 
the baby, and set him down on his four thick 
legs. He looked like a little red lamb with 
yellow eyes. Into the hole he scrambled, and 
crept through the tunnel to the dark den at 
the end. On the nest of leaves inside he found 
his four brothers and sisters snuggling to- 
gether. The old mother had carried them there 
one by one. 

The day before, when a big dog came nos- 
ing about the old den, the father fox led him 
away through the woods. He could run the 



THE FOX 125 



faster, and so he kept on, with the dog chas- 
ing him, till the dog was tired out. Then he 
and the mother hurried to dig this new den 
and move the babies before the dog came back 
to the old place again. 

In going from one den to the other the old 
foxes were careful not to walk in a straight 
path. If they did that of course the dog 
could follow them by smelling their trail. 
They took a roundabout path every time. 
They trotted around a swampy meadow and 
crossed a brook by stepping from stone to 
stone. The wet ground hid the scent of 
their paws. 

This journey to the new den was the first 
time that the young foxes had been outdoors. 
As they were carried by the neck they could 
not twist their heads around to see very much. 
But still, they must have enjoyed the light and 
the fresh air. They did not want to keep on 
staying all the time in the dark den. So early 
one morning they came scrambling out after 
their mother. 

The smallest baby fox crawled out last of 
all. For a moment he stood very quiet on 
all four paws. Then he sat down and cocked 



126 WILDERNESS BABIES 

his little head on one side while he looked 
around. The old father was lying down in 
the sunlight just outside the thicket. Two of 
the babies trotted over to him and began to 
play with his tail. Two others climbed upon 
the mother's back and pushed each other off. 
There they wrestled, rolling over and over in 
each other's paws. 

The smallest baby wanted to make the others 
pay him some attention. He lifted his sharp 
little black nose and opened his mouth and 
began to bark — bow- wow- wow, bow-wow- 
wow — till the others stopped playing. They 
came running over to ask what was the mat- 
ter. He told them something in the fox lan- 
guage by rubbing his cool wet nose against 
theirs. Then they all five trotted about and 
explored the thicket by smelling of everything 
within reach. 

They poked their noses into the grass and 
against the trees and bushes and over every 
stick and stone and leaf on the ground. To 
their keen nostrils everything had a different 
smell. When the smallest baby smelled a stick 
he could tell which little brother or sister had 
been smelling it just before him. 



THE FOX W 



As the sun rose higher and the air grew 
warmer the little fellows sat down and rested, 
with their tongues lolling out of their mouths. 
Like all foxes and wolves and dogs they per- 
spired through the tongue and the soles of 
their feet. After a while the mother gave a 
low growl to say that it was time to go back 
into the den. In they scampered head first, 
and curled up for a nap, with their fluffy tails 
over their noses. 

When the babies cut their teeth the mother 
stopped feeding them with milk. After that 
she and the father fox were kept busy hunting 
for food for the hungry young ones. Some- 
times they hunted in the daytime as well as 
at night. Oftener, however, the old mother 
stayed near the den to keep guard when the 
little foxes came out to play every afternoon. 

Such fun as the five little ones had together! 
They ran round and round, chasing their tails. 
One hid behind a tuft of grass and jumped 
out to scare the others. Another climbed upon 
a rock and then was afraid to slide down. One 
went rolling down a small hill while another 
capered beside him and pretended to snap at 
him. 



128 WILDERNESS BABIES 

Once the smallest baby saw a grasshopper 
whizz past. He saw where it was hiding under 
a leaf. He crouched down as low as he could 
and crept toward it. Without making a noise 
he crawled from bush to stone, from stone to 
tuft of weeds, till he was near enough to 
spring and catch it in his paws. All the others 
ran to see what he had caught. The mother 
came, too, from the place where she had been 
watching him. She was proud of him because 
he was learning to hunt while so young. 

As evening came on and the shadows length- 
ened under the trees the mother fox sent the 
babies into the den and walked away to hunt 
for a supper. The smallest fox happened to 
be the last one in. He turned when just in- 
side and poked his pointed nose out to watch 
her as she trotted away into the woods. 

A few hours later, when they heard her low 
call at the mouth of the burrow, out they came 
tumbling. Sometimes she had a rabbit hang- 
ing in her mouth, with its long legs on one 
side and its long ears on the other. Sometimes 
she had a young turkey thrown over her shoul- 
ders, or a fringe of field-mice hanging by the 
tails from her lips. Once she brought a wood- 



THE FOX 129 



chuck, and at another time a string of little 
chickens held by the necks. 

The babies always ran and snatched for a 
piece. Then each trotted off alone to eat it. 
When they were not hungry they played with 
the food. They nibbled the bits, first tossing 
them into the air and then springing to catch 
them. They could not use their fore-paws so 
freely as animals like the cat. They growled 
and shook the mice to and fro in their mouths. 
Sometimes they snatched from one another 
and snapped and snarled crossly. Once the 
smallest fox had a fight. Every time he flew 
at his brother the other whisked his bushy tail 
in front of his face, and all the little one got 
was a mouthful of fur. 

By and by the young foxes were taken out 
to learn to hunt for themselves. There was 
ever so much to learn because every different 
animal must be hunted in a different way. 
The main lesson was to keep their eyes open 
and their ears alert and their noses keen for 
smelling. They must be quick to jump and 
wise at all sorts of tricks. 

They learned to catch chickens by hiding 
near the place where the flock was feeding. 

9 



130 WILDERNESS BABIES 

When a chicken strayed near enough quick 
as a flash out jumped the fox and caught it 
by the neck. They chased rabbits and pounced 
on busy squirrels. They hunted meadow-mice 
in the grass, and stole silently upon careless 
woodchucks. 

The smallest baby caught a chipmunk in 
almost the same way as he had caught the 
grasshopper. He saw the little brown animal 
feeding near its hole. Very slowly and care- 
fully the fox began to walk up to it. Every 
few moments the chipmunk sat up and looked 
around. When he did this the fox stood still, 
and so the chipmunk did not notice him. As 
soon as the chipmunk dropped down on all 
four feet and began to nibble again, the young 
hunter crept several steps closer. He held his 
tail pointing out straight behind. At last, with 
a rush and a jump, the fox had the chipmunk 
between his teeth. 

All summer long there was plenty to eat in 
the woods. The five young foxes grew as 
strong and tall as their parents. They left 
the old home and scattered to dig new dens 
here and there in the woods and fields. They 
all knew how to take care of themselves. 




The Fox. 
" Now and then the fox stopped to listen." Page 131. 



THE FOX 131 



Even as babies they had learned to hold still 
as a stone at any strange sound. If they 
heard it again they ran to the den as fast 
as they could scamper. More than once while 
they lay blinking comfortably in the sunlight 
they saw the old father fox spring up with 
his ears pricked forward and his eyes gleam- 
ing. With his tail erect, his fore-feet planted 
in front, and his hind- feet on the spring, he 
listened to the sound that had startled him. 
Perhaps it was the bark of a dog or the 
scream of a blue jay over a newcomer in the 
woods. It was always safer for grown foxes 
to run from an enemy than to try to fight, 
for they were swift-footed creatures. 

Once the smallest fox was really chased by 
a dog. The dog smelled his trail near a flock 
of chickens. He ran on with his nose to the 
ground till he saw the fox sitting under a tree 
with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. 
At the sound of the bark the fox looked back. 
Then off and away he ran lightly over the 
hills and through the fields. His fluffy tail 
floated in the wind. 

Now and then the fox stopped to listen to 
the baying of the dog far behind him. Two 



132 WILDERNESS BABIES 

or three times he whirled around, chasing his 
tail and capering. He knew that he could run 
the faster. He picked his way from stone to 
stone across a brook because he did not like 
to wet his feet. Then he ran up a tree that 
had fallen in a slant. He jumped from the 
end far over to a dead log and scampered 
across a rocky field. From the top of a hill 
he looked back and watched the dog trying 
to find the scent over the brook and around 
the slanting tree. When he was tired he hid 
in a hole. 

When autumn came the young foxes gath- 
ered on many a frosty night for a romp before 
going to their hunting. They galloped to and 
fro, jumping over one another and springing 
from log to log. It was almost the same as 
if they were puppies again, frisking before 
the old burrow. They wrestled and rolled and 
whirled around after their tails. Then away 
to their silent hunting! 

When the snow fell and the cold winds blew 
life was harder for the foxes. Through the 
day generally they slept in their dens, with 
their tails curled over their noses and fore- 
paws. Out they crept at sundown to hunt for 



THE FOX 133 



a rabbit or unwary squirrel, to trap a par- 
tridge, or snatch a squeaking mouse at the 
edge of a stone. 

Many a night some young fox went home 
hungry. Often he lay in the snow hour after 
hour till his legs were stiff, while he waited 
for a rabbit that stayed safe in its hole. More 
than once he made a dive into the snow after 
a partridge, only to see the bird flutter up 
before his very nose and fly into a tree. Very 
likely, as he sat looking hungrily up to the 
branches, he wished that he could climb trees. 
Undoubtedly the partridges and the squirrels 
did not wish any such thing. 

Before spring came at last the foxes were 
hungry enough to eat anything. Indeed one 
day in early March, while the smallest one was 
roaming through the woods, he happened to 
spy a garter-snake coiled on a rock in the 
sunshine. He jumped for it and gulped it 
down in a hurry. The next day he caught a 
turtle and a frog. The frog was so stiff and 
sluggish from its winter's sleep that it could 
not hop at all. 

By that time it seemed that spring was 
really at hand. As the foxes never ate grass 



134 WILDERNESS BABIES 

or leaves they did not care about the fresh 
green plants and buds through the woods. 
Nevertheless they knew very well that rabbits 
liked roots, and squirrels nibbled twigs, and 
field-mice were hungry for the sprouting 
seeds. When these small animals came out 
to eat, the foxes could hunt them more easily 
than in winter. 

Once more the soft winds blew among the 
branches and the leaves flickered in the sun- 
light. The birds were singing overhead in 
the tree-tops. And here and there in the hid- 
den thickets new broods of little red foxes 
were frisking together at the mouths of the 
burrows. 



X 

THE WOLF 

"THE FIERCEST ONE" 




♦ JOHNIHIYBEKS - .* 



The Wolf. 

"It was the father wolf coming in." Page 137. 



THE FIERCEST ONE 

THE old mother wolf came home from 
her hunting, licking her black lips. 
Her four woolly babies scrambled out 
of the den among the rocks, and ran to meet 
her. They wagged their little tails, and barked 
joyous baby barks. They rubbed against her 
legs, and reached up their little faces to kiss 
her on her cool nose. 

After smelling them all over the old wolf 
lay down beside them in the den to give them 
their dinner. The strongest little wolf was 
getting tired of milk. When he had nursed 
for a few minutes he began to play, climbing 
up his mother's shaggy back and rolling down 
again, with his legs w r aving in the air. 

Soon he pricked up his ears at the sound of 
a footstep outside the den. Then he sniffed 
the air. Sure enough ! It was the father wolf 
coming in with something furry in his mouth. 
The cubs ran to smell it. Somehow the smell 
made the strongest little fellow feel so hungry 
that he tried to bite it with his new sharp 



138 WILDERNESS BABIES 

teeth. He snapped and snarled when the old 
wolves dragged it away from him. 

Very likely this reminded the parents that 
they must now teach the young ones to eat 
meat. So on the next evening they left the 
babies safe asleep in the den and trotted away 
together. They looked like two fierce dogs, 
with shaggy gray and black hair, pointed ears, 
and bushy tails. Their yellow eyes were set 
more slanting than the eyes of dogs. 

They caught a rabbit by taking turns in 
chasing it till it was tired out. Then they 
trotted home. At the mouth of the den the 
mother gave a low call. There was a rustle of 
woolly bodies over the leaves and grasses of 
the nest back in the dark. And out tumbled 
the cubs, wriggling with joy. The father 
wolf, with his big teeth glittering behind his 
whiskered lips, tore the rabbit into pieces, and 
showed the young ones how to eat. Each 
snapped at his piece, and ran to one side alone 
to gnaw and pull it into bits small enough to 
swallow. They did not chew their food, be- 
cause like other flesh-eating animals, except 
bears, they did not have any grinding teeth. 

After the strongest baby had finished his 



THE WOLF 139 



piece he tried with a rush and a snap and a 
snarl to snatch from another little fellow. But 
the other cub held on tight with his little jaws. 
Then, growling and rolling his yellow eyes to 
watch his greedy brother, he dug a hole with 
his nose in one corner and buried the rest of 
his piece. He did this without being taught 
at all. Every wolf that ever lived knew 
enough to bury his food when he did not want 
to eat any more. 

After their dinner the mother led the babies 
down the valley to lap water from the brook. 
It was dark by this time. Stars were twin- 
kling in the sky. The shadowy trees swayed 
to and fro in the night wind. One little cub 
sat down on his haunches, pointed his nose at 
the sky, and howled. The little ones trotted 
here and there, smelling every stick and stone. 
The scream of a far-away panther on the 
mountain made the old wolf growl and bristle 
the hairs on her back. She hurried back to 
the den and sent the cubs in to sleep, while she 
stole off to hunt for her own supper. 

In the morning the little wolves crept out to 
play about in the sunshine. They rolled and 
tumbled and wrestled in much the same way 



140 WILDERNESS BABIES 

as the young foxes. Like the foxes the wolves 
belonged to the dog family of flesh-eaters. 
The little wolves were stronger and larger and 
fiercer than the little foxes. They did not 
have such bushy tails. 

One young wolf found bits of the rabbit's 
fur. He tossed and worried them, and gnawed 
so hard that the fur flew in his throat and 
nose and made him sneeze. Another saw a 
butterfly, and went plunging after it on his 
unsteady little legs. He jumped up at it, and 
opened his mouth to snap at it. He did not try 
to slap at it, as a little panther might have done, 
for he could not use his fore-paws like hands 
so easily as animals of the cat family. 

All summer long there was plenty to eat. 
The deer in the mountains were fattening on 
the green grass. They could not fight very 
well then, because their new antlers were too 
soft. There were flocks of sheep on the plain. 
The old parent wolves prowled about every 
night, and often hunted in the daytime. It 
kept them busy enough to supply the four 
hungry cubs. 

The two hunted together. Sometimes one 
hid beside a deer trail, while the other chased 



THE WOLF 141 



the deer nearer and nearer. When the deer 
passed the spot where the first wolf was hid- 
ing he sprang out and caught it from behind. 
Sometimes they took turns in chasing a deer till 
it was tired out. The deer could run the faster, 
but it always lost time by looking around to 
see how near the wolf was getting. Once in 
a while one escaped by running into the mid- 
dle of a patch of cacti. The wolves could not 
follow there without getting their feet full 
of thorns. But the deer's tough hoofs pro- 
tected its feet. 

Later in the summer the young wolves were 
taken out to learn to hunt with their parents. 
Their legs were so long that they were good 
runners, though they could not climb or spring 
very well. The nails on their toes were short 
and blunt from walking, for they could not 
be drawn back and so kept sharp, like the claws 
of animals belonging to the cat family. 

The cubs wore thick coats with soft under- 
fur beneath the coarse shaggy hair. Their 
yellow eyes were keen, and their sensitive noses 
were quick to catch every smell of the wilder- 
ness. Their jaws were strong for snapping, 
and their many teeth were sharp for biting 



142 WILDERNESS BABIES 

and tearing. They could scent the wind and 
howl when a storm was coming. 

About sunset, one summer day, the little 
wolves followed the old ones away from the 
den. Down the canyon they trotted silently, 
winding in and out among the rocks like gray 
shadows. Far up the mountain-side a flock 
of wild sheep went leaping away in terror at 
sight of the wolves. 

On the plain below rabbits scurried off, 
bounding from hillock to hillock. Prairie-dogs 
dived, squeaking, into their holes. A fox 
looked around in fright, and dodged into a 
clump of underbrush. A small herd of buf- 
faloes, on their way to the river, ran close 
together and stood with their horns outward, 
while the wolves skulked past. 

Perhaps, just at first, it seemed strange to 
the cubs to see all other animals afraid of their 
parents. At home the two shaggy old wolves 
were gentle and warm and soft toward the 
little ones. They fed them and watched over 
them and taught them all they knew. The 
babies whimpered when the old wolves left 
them alone in the den; and they barked and 
frisked with joy to see them come home again. 



THE WOLF 143 



Out here on the plain it was different. The 
sight or smell of a wolf sent all the timid wild 
creatures flying in a scramble and hurry- 
skurry to get safely out of the way. The 
sound of the hungry howling made them 
tremble with fear, for they knew what it meant. 
It meant something shaggy and gray, with 
gleaming eyes, galloping swiftly nearer and 
nearer. It meant the glitter of long teeth be- 
hind grim black lips. It meant a spring and a 
snarl and tearing pain, and then a crunching 
of bones. 

The first lesson that the young wolves 
learned was to take the trail and run it to 
earth. The father wolf showed them how to 
do it. He led them over the plain toward a 
cluster of trees along the river. He lifted his 
nose and snuffed the air. He smelled some- 
thing in the wind that was blowing toward 
him from the woods. It was not the smell of 
trees or grass or flowers or birds or squirrels. 
It was the smell of deer. 

The four cubs followed the old one as he 
galloped under the trees. They saw him stop 
ad go sniffing here and there with his nose 
to the ground. Yes, he could smell the place 



144 WILDERNESS BABIES 

where the slender hoofs had been pressing the 
grass a few minutes before. He ran on, with 
his nose to the ground. The others galloped 
after him, their heads low, their tongues hang- 
ing out, their tails held straight behind. 

Once the father wolf howled. The young 
ones looked up for an instant. There, far 
away in the dusky woods, the deer were 
bounding lightly over the dead logs. They 
turned their pretty heads now and then to 
look back, till they vanished from sight. The 
wolves kept on for a few miles, learning to 
pick up the scent on the run. Then they 
found a half -eaten buffalo in a hollow, and 
stopped there for supper. 

Through the late summer and early fall the 
young wolves hunted with their parents. Dur- 
ing the day they stayed up in the mountains 
and slept in sheltered places. Sometimes they 
were scattered miles apart. At nightfall they 
called to one another with piercing howls, till 
they finally gathered about the old father wolf. 
Then they all set out to hunt together. 

Sometimes they moved single file, stepping 
in one another's tracks. They swam across the 
river and stole noiselessly through the woods. 



THE WOLF 145 



The timid sheep were easiest to kill because 
they could not fight. When they found a calf 
or sick old buffalo one sprang at his head while 
the others attacked from behind and bit his 
hind-legs. If the wolves went too near a herd 
the old buffaloes tried to hook them. Once a 
cub started to catch a young elk, but he was 
chased away by the old mother elk. They 
butted at him with their heads and struck at 
him with their sharp hoofs, while he ran with 
his tail tucked under him. 

Autumn was pleasant enough with its bright 
days and frosty nights. The busy little crea- 
tures of the woods were gathering in their 
winter stores. Buffaloes and deer were fat 
from their summer's feeding, and could not 
always run fast to get out of the way when 
chased by the wolves. Plump rabbits and 
prairie-hens were everywhere for the catch- 
ing. Many a night the cruel wolves killed 
more than they could eat. 

But soon winter came with its shortening 
days and gray storms lowering above the 
horizon. Snow fell, and icy winds blew across 
the frozen land. The deer and elk and an- 
telope gathered in sheltered valleys. The 

10 



146 WILDERNESS BABIES 

wolves wandered down from the mountains, 
and roamed far and wide, hunting for food. 

So long as the fresh snow lay soft and 
powdery in the gullies they could not run fast 
enough to catch anything, but when the snow 
packed hard, and an icy crust formed over the 
drifts, their spreading feet did not sink in 
deeply. Then they could go out and hunt 
the elk and the deer, whose small hoofs cut 
through the crust at every bound. 

The young wolves felt hungry all the time. 
Sometimes, when a blinding storm shut them 
into their den among the rocks, they went with- 
out eating day after day. The fine snow sifted 
down upon their glossy winter coats as they 
lay close together, snuggling their cold noses 
into one another's fur. Many a night they 
dreamed of eating, and snapped and swallowed 
greedily in their short, uneasy sleep. Once, 
in nosing about hungrily, the strongest little 
wolf happened to find a bone that he had 
hidden and forgotten weeks before. With a 
spring and a snarl he crunched it between his 
white teeth and gulped it down in a hurry. 

One winter evening the four cubs, with their 
parents and five or six others, were following 



THE WOLF 147 



a herd of buffaloes. On galloped the buffaloes 
over the frozen plain. Behind and around them 
the dark forms of the wolves seemed to rise 
from the bushes and follow noiselessly. There 
was not a sound of a snap or a snarl. Now on 
this side, now on that, now lost in the shadows, 
the wolves galloped tirelessly on and on. 

Here and there two eyes gleamed in the 
dim circle of a head, or bared white teeth glit- 
tered for an instant. Then again lost in the 
dusk, without the patter of a footfall on the 
snow, they edged nearer and nearer. Finally 
there was a sound of snarling and yelping. 
The wolves were fighting together over a dead 
buffalo. They ate him, and then broke away 
over the plain at a full jump, howling as they 
went. 

Winter was over at last. The wolves were 
thin and fiercer than ever. Their grim black 
lips were always ready to curl back over their 
teeth at the smell of food. They felt such a 
dreadful gnawing emptiness inside that they 
were frantic to eat anything. When they 
began to grow weaker and weaker from 
hunger the welcome spring brought them new 
life. 



148 WILDERNESS BABIES 

Now in the time of pleasant weather and 
the plentiful food it was no longer necessary 
for the pack of wolves to hunt together. 
They were strong enough to look out for 
themselves. So the wolves scattered to make 
their summer homes in the loneliest spots 
among the mountains. 

The weeks passed by, and soon there was 
many a new family of woolly little cubs frisk- 
ing about the rocky dens. The fathers and 
mothers watched them lovingly. The black 
lips seemed almost smiling and the fierce eyes 
grew soft. They were gentle and happy there 
together, though so cruel and hateful to all 
the world outside. 



XI 

THE MOLE 
"THE ONE THAT DIGS THE BEST" 



THE ONE THAT DIGS THE BEST 

DEEP down in their dark room under- 
ground the five mole babies lay fast 
asleep on a soft bed of leaves and 
grasses. The bed was not much bigger than 
a robin's nest. The little moles cuddled to- 
gether, with their pointed pink snouts resting 
on one another's satiny bodies. Their little 
hind- feet sprawled behind them, and their big 
flat hands, with the pink palms turned out- 
ward, were spread close to their necks. 

Presently the fattest little mole opened his 
black specks of eyes, though they were not 
of much use down there in the dark. He 
wriggled his pointed snout as he sniffed the 
air. The faintest of breezes floated toward 
him through one of the round openings in 
the wall. It was a breeze caused by some- 
thing running toward the nursery. Tiny feet 
came galloping nearer and nearer. There was 
a light rustle of fur brushing along the tunnel. 
It was the mother mole hurrying back from 
her hunting. 



152 m WILDERNESS BABIES 

All the little moles jumped wide awake in 
an instant when their sensitive bodies felt the 
quiver around them. It seemed to them that 
the earth shook under the mother's pattering 
feet. Of course they were not afraid, because 
they knew from the smell who was coming. 
And then, just as soon as they smelled the 
worm that she was carrying in her mouth, 
they began to tumble over one another to 
snatch at it. 

The greedy young ones shoved and pushed 
and fought as if they were starving. They 
pulled at the worm with their claws, and 
snipped off bits with their sharp teeth. Even 
after it was all eaten they went nosing 
around in the dark and squeaked for more. 
The fattest little fellow crawled so far into 
one of the tunnels that he almost slipped 
into the tiny well which the parent moles 
had dug when they made this underground 
home. 

The poor old mother lay down to rest for 
a few minutes. It seemed as if she did not 
have time to eat or sleep since the babies had 
cut their teeth and learned to eat worms. 
They were always hungry. As for herself, 




The Mole. 

" The greedy young ones shoved and pushed and fought 
as if they were starving." Page 152, 



THE MOLE 153 



though the old father helped her hunt she 
was really growing thinner every day. The 
young moles were six weeks old now, and 
it was time that they learned to hunt for 
themselves. 

The babies were eager enough to learn to 
dig and hunt. They were tired of staying in 
that dark nursery, even if it was so comfort- 
able, with its domed roof and soft, dry bed. 
Perhaps they wished to poke their heads above 
ground just once and find out what the world 
was like. They did not know the difference 
between day and night yet, for where they 
lived it was always dark. 

When at last the five young ones started 
out to learn to dig they followed the mother 
in single file along the main tunnel. This 
main tunnel was long and straight. Its walls 
w^ere pressed smooth by the bodies of the old 
moles in their many journeys to and fro. 
Branching off in every direction from the 
main road there were side tracks zigzagging 
and curving hither and thither. These side 
tracks had been dug by the parents when 
they were chasing worms or hunting for 
grubs and beetles. 



154 WILDERNESS BABIES 

The babies scampered on to the end of the 
main tunnel. There the ground happened to 
be soft enough for their little claws. They 
crowded against one another, and squeaked 
and twitched their short tails impatiently. 
Their pink snouts were already bending and 
twisting in eagerness to be a-digging. 

The fattest little fellow was in such a hurry 
to begin that he did not wait to be told. He 
nosed along the wall till he found a good 
place to start. Then planting his small hind- 
feet down flat, to brace himself, he set his 
tough snout against the dirt and pushed as 
hard as he could. At the same time he dug 
his claws into the wall and shovelled away with 
both his big broad hands. 

There they went — the five babies — dig- 
ging five little tunnels in five different direc- 
tions. The dirt flew thick and fast as they 
shovelled it out and tossed it aside. But the 
specks of eyes were safely hidden under the 
fur, and the invisible ears and nostrils were 
kept closely covered too. When the dirt 
clung to their satiny gray fur they shook it 
off clean with a quick shrug of the skin. 
The hairs of the fur grew straight out, and 



THE MOLE 155 



so it made no difference whether it was 
rubbed one way or another. It was never 
bristly or rough. 

It must have been fun to go scrambling 
through earth almost as birds fly through air 
or fishes swim through water. The moles had 
such tough snouts and strong arms and 
powerful hands that they could burrow better 
than any of the other mammals. 

One little mole burrowed on till his arms 
were so tired that he gave it up. He crept 
backward down his new tunnel to the spot 
where the old mother was waiting. Another 
kept on digging faster and faster till he ran 
his pink snout bump against a stone, and 
almost made it bleed. A third pushed on 
and on till he reached a patch of slimy mud 
that caved in over his back and sent his feet 
slipping and sprawling. The fourth dug till 
he came plump upon a fat white grub curled 
among some roots of grass. The little mole 
gave a jump and gobbled it down quick as a 
wink. 

The fattest baby burrowed farther and far- 
ther till he felt the soil crumbling above him. 
Something warm was shining on his gray fur. 



156 WILDERNESS BABIES 

He lifted his head and poked his long snout 
up into the sunlight. He blinked his twin- 
kling, tiny eyes and sniffed the strange fresh 
air. But he stayed there only for a minute, 
because he did not like it the least bit. The 
light dazzled him, and the warmth dried his 
cool, pink hands and made his head ache 
and his snout twitch uneasily. So after that 
one disagreeable minute he turned and kicked 
up his little hind- feet as he dived back into 
the moist, cool, dark, delightful places under- 
ground. 

After this first lesson in digging the five 
young moles were running in and out of the 
nursery every few hours, night and day. It 
was easy enough to burrow away in search 
of the stupid white grubs or the beetles lying 
sleepy and still in the soil; but it was harder 
and much more exciting to hunt earthworms, 
because they always tried to wriggle off as 
fast as they could go. 

Then how the dirt flew as the little hunter 
burrowed madly in pursuit! Now in this 
direction, now in that, he chased, pushing with 
his snout and tearing with his claws. Once 
in a while he stopped quiet to listen and feel 



THE MOLE 157 



the ground for the faint quivering caused 
by the worm in its squirming hither and 
thither. 

An hour or so of such lively work was 
enough to tire even a stout young mole. 
After eating what he had caught, sometimes 
he ran back to take a nap on the soft bed in 
the nursery. Sometimes he lay down in the 
main tunnel to rest; but that was not so 
pleasant, for it seemed as if one or another 
of his brothers and sisters was forever trying 
to scramble over him. 

The busiest time for hunting was at night, 
or in the early morning, because then the 
worms began to move about after lying quiet 
all day. In dry weather the worms went 
deeper into the ground to find moisture. In 
w r et w r eather they wriggled toward the sur- 
face, swallowing bits of dirt as they went. 
The little moles liked rain best because it was 
much easier to push through the light soil 
above than to tunnel through the hard ground 
below. 

After the young ones learned to hunt for 
their own food it was not long before they 
had found and eaten every worm and grub 



158 WILDERNESS BABIES 

and beetle anywhere near. The old and new 
tunnels ran in every direction, curving, zigzag- 
ging, and criss-crossing through the ground. 
There was hardly a spot of solid earth under 
all the grass in that meadow. 

Now and then on cool nights the whole 
hungry family crept outside and prowled 
about, looking for lizards, snails, or frogs. 
Once in a while one of them found a dead 
bird or mouse or small snake. He sprang on 
it and tore it to pieces in an instant. The 
moles always ate as if they were starving. 
Drawing back their heads and hunching their 
backs they stuffed the food into their mouths 
with their clawed hands. 

As summer passed on the young moles 
began to grow discontented. They were tired 
of staying at home. They were too big to 
crowd upon the nest in the nursery. When- 
ever two met in any of the narrow tunnels 
one had to back into a side track to let the 
other pass. The water was stagnant in the 
wells, Food was getting more and more 
scarce. Many a time there was a sound of 
scratching and fighting in the long dark halls 
of that underground home. 



THE MOLE 159 



Soon each little mole began to think of 
having a home of his own, where there would 
be nobody else to crowd him, or quarrel with 
him, or snatch the best of everything to eat. 
So presently, one by one, they wandered away 
to find pleasanter places. One prowled into 
a garden, and tunnelled ridges all over the 
green lawn. One stumbled into a pond, but 
he did not drown, for he could swim with his 
webbed feet. He swam across to a small island 
and dug his house under a bank where he could 
catch plenty of frogs. 

The three others strolled into a field 
that had been freshly ploughed. The soil 
was not wet nor hard nor stony, but just 
what they liked best. Each one chose a 
corner, and ran his main tunnel from end 
to end of the space to be used for his 
hunting-ground. 

The five new homes were much like the old 
one. Each had a domed underground room 
with a nest of leaves and grasses in it, and 
several outlets to allow escape in case of 
danger. Each had one or more main tunnels, 
with smooth-pressed sides and many zigzag 
side tracks leading in all directions. Each one 



160 WILDERNESS BABIES 

had tiny wells of water, and little storerooms 
for the winter supply of earthworms. A 

When winter came, and the ground was 
frozen hard above, each little mole, alone by 
himself, dived down into his safe deep nest 
and stayed there till early spring softened the 
soil. Then, livelier than ever, he shovelled his 
way out to the surface to find a mate. Soon 
in every pleasant little home under the ground 
there was a new family of soft, round babies, 
with their specks of eyes deep hidden in their 
satiny gray fur. 



CONCLUSION 



CONCLUSION 

COUNTLESS years have passed since 
that day, long, long ago, when the 
first tiny living creature began to grow 
in the new world of rocks and water. All 
this time things have been moving and chang- 
ing. The earth keeps whizzing around the 
sun, while the sun itself rushes blazing through 
space. Brooks are rippling; rivers are flow- 
ing; seas are rolling their waves against the 
shores. Now the trees toss their branches in 
the wind; now the rain sprinkles down from 
gray clouds, or snow drifts silently over the 
prairie. 

In the spring all the wilderness is green 
with growing leaves and flowers and grasses. 
The world is alive with animals. In the water 
sea creatures are feeding in their places, or 
floating and swimming here and there. On 
land there are worms and insects, creeping 
reptiles and flying birds. 

From inland ponds beavers scramble ashore 
in the dusk to nibble fresh twigs for supper. 



164 WILDERNESS BABIES 

In southern rivers the manatee crawls over 
the white sand among the reeds. On island 
beaches little seals go paddling in safe pools. 
Out at sea great whales glide through the 
waves. 

On the plains buffalo calves kick up their 
heels near the grazing herd. Elk, with ears 
twitching at every strange sound, wander 
down from upland meadows. In the woods 
rabbits hop away under the bushes. Little 
shrews dart from leaf to leaf among the 
shadows. In wilder spots pointed noses sniff 
and bright eyes twinkle from the dens of 
wolves and foxes. Bears shuffle softly through 
the underbrush, and panthers steal out on tip- 
toe to their hunting. 

In the trees squirrels scamper from branch 
to branch. Now and then a mother opossum 
trots by with her pocket full of young ones. 
Bats fly this way and that in hungry pursuit 
of insects dancing in the twilight air. Under 
the ground moles dig busily after worms. 

All these mammals and, many others live 
wild in the United States, and there are many 
others still, more or less like them, in foreign 
lands. 



